


The Road Goes Ever On (And On)

by madame_faust



Category: Lord of the Rings (Movies), Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-03-16
Packaged: 2017-11-27 08:51:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/660098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for The Hobbit Kink Meme - "All the dwarves survive the BOTFA. When the Fellowship of the Ring comes around, they all decide to go to Rivendell for a reunion with Bilbo. While the Fellowship heads off on their quest, the dwarves decide that it's time for another of their own and kidnap a (possibly willing) Bilbo and take him back to Erebor."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing and am profiting nothing from this story. Here's a link to the original prompt and post on LJ: http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/3393.html?thread=6294337#t6294337

When the envoy from the Lonely Mountain descended upon Rivendell, the assemblies from the other kingdoms took to muttering among themselves for theirs was the largest party of representatives by far - and what representatives! It was expected that Prince Kili, third in the line of succession would come with a cousin or two from the line of Durin, but it seemed they’d brought half the royal court with them.

Thorin himself, the King Under the Mountain, was among their number as well as his sister and unofficial co-regent the Lady Sigdís. It was she who first arrived in the last homely house east of the sea. The rumor was that the Erebor dwarves were indebted to the wizard Gandalf and came due on the Maiar’s command. Others, knowing the reputation for violence among that people, speculated that they had a score to settle with the Elves of Mirkwood and that two representatives of their races would fight in bloody single combat. The truth was far less exciting and dismissed as too incredible to believe; they came in such great numbers to see about a hobbit.

Some members of the company of Thorin Oakenshield visited the Shire in the decades between the re-conquest of Erebor and the present dark days, but they were fewer and fewer in number as the years passed away. Bad weather might delay the trek one year or business near home kept them away. _Next year_ , they’d think confidently to themselves. _Or the year after that. It has been far too long since we have seen our burglar._ It was easy to forget that Hobbits were nearly as short-lived as Men and they would soon run out of ‘next-years’ upon which to pin their wishes.

When the Lady Under the Mountain led the way toward the Lord Elrond and his retainers, she and her companions seemed to have little time for the courtesy of the Elves. Her husband, the great Dwarrow warrior Dwalin, tallest of their number, craned his neck and scanned the halls of Rivendell, but it was Bofur, miner by trade, whose eyes were trained to pick out glorious gems from the dullest surroundings who spotted the little crown of white curls bobbing just out of sight.

“Bilbo Baggins!” he shouted joyfully, raising his hat over his head and waving it energetically. Some of Lord Elrond’s fellows frowned at the insult paid to their king, but the Elf Lord just smiled indulgently and bade them give the Dwarves and Hobbit some privacy.

The old hobbit lost years from his countenance as he positively beamed at the dwarf. This reunion was more than he could have dreamed of. Naturally he knew the Dwarves of each kingdom would send representatives and he hoped - how he’d hoped! - that one of their number would be one of his old friends from so many years ago. Those he had not been as close to, Bifur who could speak to him only in the Dwarven gesture-language, for instance, would be a most welcome sight to his nostalgic eyes. Taking up his quill to write of their adventures brought the memories back to him so strongly that even as he woke in Rivendell he would roll over, expecting to hear Bombur’s thunderous snores or the gruff, affectionate voices of Óin and Glóin arguing over the best way to light a fire. Then he’d feel the stiffness in his joints, the ache in his bones and the intervening decades would remind him of how very far away they were.

Bofur’s arms around him felt almost like coming home. His clothes might be finer now, his dark hair greyer, but he was so unchanged in essentials that Bilbo could not stop smiling if he tried. The dwarf pulled back and held him at arm’s length, looking him up and down. His own grin did not fade, but Bilbo saw the surprise in his friend’s eyes as he saw how the years affected him. Well, ordinary hobbits could not live forever, could they?

“My Lady,” Bilbo said to Dís, whom he’d spied smiling at him over Bofur’s shoulder. His acquaintance with Thorin’s sister was of shorter duration than his friendship with the others, but she made quite an impression on him. She was beautiful, in the way of Dwarrow-women, with strong features and a beard that she’d let grow long enough to braid. Now it was shot through with silver as her brother’s was when he knew him, but that only enhanced her regality.

“Now, none of that,” she said, opening her arms and embracing him in turn. Of royal blood though she was, Dís had the straightforward practicality of her people in spades and did not abide standing on ceremony, not with this most honorable Hobbit. “How fare you, Master Baggins?”

“Very well, very well,” he said politely before he was positively descended upon - backslaps from Dwalin, a hug from Glóin whose ever-impressive beard nearly smothered him and a longer, gentler embrace from a dwarf with a long red-brown beard who Bilbo recognized as Ori only moments before he was pressed against him.

There were three other younger Dwarves Bilbo didn’t recognize who hung back and looked at him with great interest, nudging one another and exchanging glances, but otherwise keeping their thoughts to themselves. Bilbo looked at Dís questioningly. “How...how is your brother?” he inquired in a would-be-casual sort of way. Naturally, as King Under the Mountain, Thorin would have more important things to do that travel to Elvish lands to catch up with a hobbit, but oh, he had hoped -

“He’s here,” Dís replied, correctly reading Bilbo’s intention underneath his words. “Should be along any moment, he’s tending our mounts.”

“Still don’t trust Fíli and Kíli with the ponies,” Bofur winked. “Who would, after last time, eh Bilbo?”

Bilbo laughed, delighted. “Fíli and Kíli are here as well? Both of them?”

“Couldn’t be helped,” Dwalin rolled his eyes. “Try separating one from the other is like prizing a blade from a hilt. Damned nuisance and hardly worth the effort when all’s said and done.”

Bilbo was not sure how apt the simile was, but as with so many things he’d heard and seen in his dealings with the Dwarves he just nodded and smiled slightly. The three younger Dwarves, tired of waiting for their whole party to join them took a step closer, looking at their elders and obviously on tenderhooks.

“They weren’t the only ones who were champing at the bit to see you,” Dís informed him. “Bilbo Baggins, allow me to present my younger children, Frerin and Fredís.”

Now that they had been introduced, the black-haired dwarrow lad and lass did not know what to say. They bobbed their heads and grinned a little foolishly. Not one to be left waiting, Glóin cleared his throat and gestured to the third unfamiliar dwarf proudly declaring, “And my son, Gimli.”

“Oh, this is Gimli, is it?” Bilbo asked, recalling the name easily from many fireside chats he had with Glóin about his wife and son. Hobbit parents could speak for hours about the merits of each of their children, it was no hardship to listen attentively when the dwarf spoke at length about his only son. “I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

“Not as much as I’ve heard about you, Master Hobbit, I’m sure,” Gimli said, shaking Bilbo’s hand with a barely-suppressed excitement that came with meeting childhood heroes and not wanting to make a fool of oneself. “It’s an honor.”

“I wonder that you two are so quiet,” Dís observed aloud to her children. “Peppering us with questions about Mr. Baggins and his accomplishments, you had our poor Ori talk himself hoarse.”

That did it. The floodgates were opened. “It really is an honor to meet you, Mr. Baggins,” the girl, Fredís gushed. She was much younger even than Ori was when they set out on their quest. Bilbo imagined it took some convincing for her family to let her come along to Rivendell at all. It must have been important to her, but he never guessed that the reason for her insistence in the matter was to meet the halfling burglar to whom her family claimed to owe their kingdom.

“Is it true you took on Azog the Defiler armed only with a letter-opener?” her brother Frerin asked eagerly. He too was little more than a dwarfling, but already tall and broad as a young tree. It was obvious which parent he favored, but his bright eyes and open expression reminded Bilbo powerfully of Kíli.

Bilbo chuckled and ran a hand through his hair distractedly. “Did your uncle tell you that story? It wasn’t quite a letter-opener, and I certainly wouldn’t use the phrase ‘took on,’ I think ‘fell on’ would be a bit more accurate - ” he trailed off and looked helplessly at Ori who shrugged.

“I was dangling from my brother’s ankles,” he shrugged with a smile. “If Balin says it was valiant single-combat with a letter opener, well, no one’s ever contradicted him.”

“I suppose Balin’s stories have a way of turning the least of us into heroes,” Bilbo grinned at Ori.

“Or the best of us into legends. And you are quite a legend in Erebor, burglar.” He turned slowly and, as he had all those years ago in his dining room in Bag End, he beheld a Dwarrow King dressed in furs. Thorin Oakenshield had arrived.


	2. Chapter 2

The King Under the Mountain looked every bit as regal as his title implied. His long hair was more silver than black now, but he’d let his beard grow most impressively since the re-capture of Erebor. His robes were fine and the furs that lined them were not warn and matted-down by weeks of travel, but looked new. The steely glint in his eye was familiar, though, as was the wry smile that pulled at his mouth when he looked at Bilbo.  
  
The hobbit hardly knew what to say. Thorin was one of the few dwarves who had not visited him in Bag End, though according to Balin he asked after him whenever any of their former company made West to pay an extended call. His duties at the Lonely Mountain were many and after leaving it for so long, he was loathe to step foot away. Thorin could be superstitious, it went hand in hand with his paranoia and part of him feared that if he travelled from Erebor, he would wake the next morning and find himself an exile again, the mountain lost to him and all the intervening decades gone as if they never existed.  
  
Necessity could silence all fears, however and looking at their wizened burglar, Thorin was very pleased he took to his pony and came with his friends and kinfolk to Rivendell. If he had not, he thought it very likely he would not see Bilbo Baggins again in this life.  
  
They parted on good terms after the Battle of the Five Armies, but some lingering worry creased the hobbit’s eyes and dampened his smile. Thorin recalled all too well his words and actions at the gate of Erebor that day during the conflict with the Men and Elves. It made him heartsick to reflect upon what his greed and rage nearly cost him, but he would not wish those memories away for a treasure-house. They reminded him what terror he was capable of and though the hobbit forgave him with his whole heart, Thorin was not surprised he approached him with some trepidation now. He hoped to assure the hobbit that he held him in his esteem now as he had the last time they met, but for the two streaks of hair and beard - one light, one dark - who came running up the walkway on either side of him and practically tackled the hobbit to the ground as they embraced him.  
  
“Bilbo! It’s so good to see you!” Kíli grinned, shaking hair out of his eyes and giving the hobbit a good look up and down.  
  
“How are you?” Fíli asked, giving Bilbo a friendly punch on the arm.  
  
Rubbing the spot the golden haired dwarf hit (not too hard, it must be said), Bilbo smiled back at them and said, “It’s wonderful to see you too! I’m as well as ever I was - slower, these days, perhaps, but you both look very well.”  
  
They did, too. Handsome young dwarflings they were when they set out and they’d turned into fine young dwarrow men with time. Fíli sported a scar down one eye, which Bilbo remembered as a still-healing wound from the Battle of the Five Armies. Dwarves regarded scars as hobbits did dimples and likely he was regarded as handsomer for it. Kíli looked much the same, he’d not let his beard grow out as other members of his family had, which meant he was still plying his skill with a bow. His brother used to teased him that none of the lassies would pay him any mind, but evidently Kíli did not let that trouble him.  
  
“How are the Elves treating you?” Fíli asked, glancing around at their surroundings. “Still only serving lettuce? Poor Ori’ll starve to death.”  
  
Ori turned a bit pink around the ears “I’ll eat what I’m given,” he said, sounding as though he was parroting back one of his older brother’s orders of polite conduct.  
  
Speaking of, “How are your brothers?” Bilbo asked Ori curiously.  
  
“They’re well, thanks,” he replied. “Dori stayed back in Erebor, but he sends his best. He said he’s had enough of travel for a lifetime. Erm...not actually sure where Nori is at the moment, but I’m sure he sends his best too.”

That sounded like them. As Bilbo recalled, the only reason the eldest of the Brothers Ri embarked on their long-ago quest was to look after Ori. Nori joined up to evade trouble with the dwarvish authorities and it seemed he still could not keep himself out of trouble.  
  
“When you hear from him, let me know,” Thorin remarked wryly. “There’s a matter of fifty gold peytrals that disappeared from the royal mounts of the Iron Hills that wants tending to.”  
  
Ori nodded nervously and Fíli and Kíli swapped smiles. Bilbo chuckled and said, “The more things change...”  
  
“...the more they stay the same,” Thorin finished. “He proved his loyalty to me long ago, but I cannot turn a blind eye to theft in my kingdom.”  
  
“He proved his loyalty to _you_ ,” Dís clarified. “Not Dáin Ironfoot’s horses - one would think he’d keep better eye on his ponies.”  
  
“Did Fíli and Kíli offer to watch them?” Fredís suggested with a sly smile. “Maybe they were working together.”  
  
Her elder brothers started in pseudo-panic. “ _Sister!_ ” Fíli gasped, placing a hand on his heart. “How could you betray us like this?”  
  
Kíli groaned aloud, “We swore you to secrecy!”  
  
She shrugged and smiled. “I swore with my left hand.”  
  
Bofur laughed, getting in on the fun. “Aye, it’s a proper conspiracy,” he winked at Bilbo. “And what a scandal! The king’s heirs conspiring with a rapparee to steal the baubles off ponies’ necks. They’ll hear about that in the Blue Mountains!”  
  
Dís shook her head closed her eyes. “Aye, what a terrible embarrassment it is, my own sons!” Grinning, she tilted her head at Dwalin and added, conversationally. “I’m pleased we’ve been let alone, we’re making a very poor showing of ourselves. Imagine if word of their conduct got round to the other races? We’d be laughed right off of those waterfalls.”  
  
Dwalin snorted, “Can’t say that’d be too harsh for some. Thought you’d raised ‘em up better than to go about thieving barding.”  
  
“I raised ‘em up to thieve arms, at least,” Dís sighed. “Lads, you’ve disappointed your mother.”  
  
Thorin shook his head and put an end to their foolishness. “Shameful.,” he said, but clearly did not mean it. “But the charges will be tried another time, for we have more pressing matters to give our attention to. I would speak to the Lord Elrond - and request that you keep your tongues among the Elvenkind.”  
  
They agreed, Fredís with a slightly chagrined look on her face - she’d only been permitted to come if she kept her head and comported herself like a lady, but her brothers quickly put an end to that. Frerin seemed pleased not to be included in the reprimand, but Fíli and Kíli only smiled, undaunted as ever in their mischief-making.  
  
Some things _had_ changed, Bilbo noted as Lord Elrond reappeared soundlessly before them and greeted Thorin graciously. He was sure he’d never see the day when Thorin Oakenshield would request an audience with an Elf lord with neither a snarl nor a grimace.


	3. Chapter 3

Bilbo had been fascinated by Elves since he was a young hobbit scurrying about the countryside with dreams of adventure on his mind. The tall, graceful creatures with the wisdom of the ages in their fair heads seemed about as far from the comfortable, ordinary folk of the Shire as one could get. On his mother’s knee he read the stories of their ways and studied their language with all the care and enthusiasm others in Hobbiton devoted to their gardens and measurements for brewing the perfect barrel of stout. With his Took and Brandybuck cousins he pretended to be an Elvenking and they a band of orcs.  
  
The Tooks liked to die dramatic deaths and Bilbo liked to play the hero, so the arrangement suited them nicely as he merrily stabbed them all with twigs from trees, skipping lightly threw the grass. Many a trail of tiny children were left in his wake, contorting their faces and bellowing so wretchedly that the neighbors gave them a scold for waking babies and frightening the sheep. His first visit to Rivendell was like a dream come true, he scarcely saw his companions, preferring to spend his times among the books of the Elves, speaking to them and learning from them. So too passed this long sojourn in reading, writing and conversation. The arrival of Frodo and his friends was an obvious distraction, but it was not long before Bilbo felt the tug of his quill and the need to learn and record as much as he could while he had time enough to do it.  
  
Then his companions of so many years ago returned and he found himself laying aside his quill and tottering down to the veranda to pass the evening with them. He thought they might be mingling alongside the delegations from the other dwarf kingdoms, but it seemed those from the Lonely Mountain still liked to keep themselves to themselves while socializing. Thorin never mentioned it during their quest, at least not within the hobbit’s hearing, but he was surely disappointed that none but his kin and friends from Ered Luin came to his aid in the quest to retake Erebor. Knowing Thorin Oakenshield as he did, it would not surprise him a bit if the grizzled dwarf still held them a grudge.  
  
“Camping?” he asked, noticing the small fire they had going. Bilbo eased himself onto the ground, thought better of it about halfway down, realised there was no going back and sat beside Bofur. “It can’t be convenient for My Lord Eldrond to replace the furniture _every_ time you lot come through. He shall have no chairs for his Council.”  
  
Bofur flashed a grin at him, “Lucky for him, we only come through once every half-century or so.”  
  
“We brought our own food and fuel,” Fíli said, taking his own spot on the floor on Bilbo’s other side. “After last time. Sausage?”  
  
Lord Elrond obviously did _not_ make a habit of hosting dwarves, if he had, he or at least his retainers might have realized what an insult the dwarves paid him as a host and set about making some effort to soothe their wounded pride. Lord Elrond was not an ungracious host, by the standards of Elves or Hobbits, but for Dwarves the attentions they received last time were grossly rude. The first mistake was providing them with leafy greens - having no meat to eat was symbolic of poverty and lean times and such fare seemed to intentionally make a mockery of the exiles of Erebor. Refusing to let them cut trees to make a fire (or provide them with wood when they asked) was similarly inhospitable.  
  
His friends and companions did not unburden all the secrets of their race to him, but bringing food to a gathering was a pointed negative commentary on the host. Though he did not know it at the time, by providing his unexpected guests with all the food and drink they wanted, he passed some unspoken test to attain some esteem in their eyes. At least, he assumed so, given the fact that they left his house spotless and did not burn any of _his_ furniture - alas, the doily was unsalvagable once Nori got through with it, but one casualty after a night such as that could be forgiven.

“I’ll have a sausage, yes,” Bilbo nodded. The only thing more damaging for one’s reputation than being inhospitable to Dwarves was refusing Dwarven hospitality when it was offered to you. Kíli crouched behind them, placing one hand on his brother’s shoulder and the other hand on Bilbo’s. Frerin followed him a few paces behind them, but he crouched next to his elder brother when Kíli bade him to.  
  
“We just checked the perimeter,” he said seriously. “We’re _surrounded_.”  
  
Fíli gave him an odd look, assuming his brother was pulling his leg, but not having the faintest idea what he was on about. “Are we? That’s too bad. By whom?”  
  
Frerin nodded. “By hobbits. Four of them. We think they’re planning to steal the sausages.”  
  
Bilbo twisted his head round and did note a head adorned with light brown curls dart behind a pillar. His ears, not as sharp as once they were, but still good enough, caught the unmistakable sound of Tookish giggling. Acting every bit the cantankerous old man, he called sharply, “Peregrin Took! Meriadoc Brandybuck! Come out of hiding you skulking attercops! And don’t pretend my own nephew and gardner aren’t with you!”  
  
Four sets of sheepish, shuffling feet drew the young hobbits closer to the light of the fire. “We weren’t planning to _steal_ , Mr. Bilbo,” Sam protested.  
  
“Just waiting to see if there’d be leftovers,” Pippin added, eyeing the sausage Fíli was roasting with a covetous look in his eyes.  
  
Bilbo sniffed imperiously. “I’m ashamed to know you.”  
  
“Don’t be cross, Uncle,” Frodo chastised gently. There was a sadness in him, a distance that Bilbo remembered too well from his own past. He was pleased to see some of that had gone now, or at least dimmed. Being in the company of good friends could cure a remarkable number of ills.  
  
He certainly felt better for it. “Would-be thieves, the lot of you.” Bilbo replied, turning his nose up at them.  
  
“Now, now,” Dís said, coming up behind the hobbits and making them all jump as they regarded her with wide, excited eyes. “You can’t steal what’s freely given.”  
  
Bofur tossed a hot sausage in Merry’s direction, “Tuck in, lads, there’s plenty to go around.” Cocking his head at Dís he asked, “Did we bring anything to wash it all down?”  
  
“‘Course we did.” Gimli made that remark as he crossed the floor to settle a large keg on the edge of the fire’s light. “Not natural to pair sausages with _wine_ ,” he observed disdainfully. The Dwarvish hospitality was in good form that night and soon everyone was settled down with meat and drink, swapping stories to entertain one another.  
  
“You’re all Bilbo’s Dwarves, then?” Merry asked after The Tragedy of Bilbo Baggins’s Lost Hankie was recounted to great amusement. Pippin was not so subtly counting the dwarves to see if they made an even thirteen. Unfortunately, he only had ten fingers and it did not occur to him to make use of his toes, so he conscripted Frodo’s left hand into the task and began again.  
  
“We certainly are not,” Kíli replied indignantly. “Bilbo’s _our_ Hobbit. Did he ever tell you about the time we thought he was going to feed the lot of us to Mountain Trolls?”  
  
Frodo looked at his uncle with interest, “We heard about the time he _saved_ you from Mountain Trolls...”

“I suppose he did that too,” Glóin allowed. “But it was touch and go there for a minute.”  
  
The four young hobbits looked curiously at Bilbo, torn between annoyance that he’d kept details of his travels from them and delight that they’d not heard everything there was to know about his adventure with the dwarves. “I may have prodded the trolls into a small debate about the best way to prepare dwarves.”  
  
“Mister Bilbo!” Sam cried, scandalized. “You said the trolls were arguing among themselves!”  
  
“And so they were,” Bilbo agreed, taking out his pipe to have a smoke. “I merely supplied some suggestions to...er...aid in their dialogue.”  
  
“Had me fooled!” Ori added. “‘Course I preoccupied with slow-roasting to death, but for a minute there I was convinced that hobbits were fearsome dwarf-eaters.”  
  
“Skinning was mentioned,” Fíli reminded him and grinned merrily. “Got me in a proper rage. ‘Course, I was bagged at that point and couldn’t do more than try to bite your ankles.”  
  
Fredís laughed aloud. “Bite his ankles? How’d you get on with that?”  
  
“Poorly,” Fíli shrugged, then smiled slyly and nudged Kíli in the ribs. “Still got out with my dignity more or less intact. Unlike my brother here.”  
  
“Oh, is this the bit about the parasites?” his mother asked, sounding incredibly amused. “Tell that story, I laugh every time.”  
  
“Right, so, we’re half bagged, half of us are in our underthings on a spit,” Bofur had a knack for storytelling which he employed with great effect. His was a different style than Balin's, one that emphasized what actually happened, rather than what ought to have happened. "And Bilbo gets himself up - why none of the rest of you made a go of it I’ll never know.”  
  
“My feet were pinned beneath your little brother!” Glóin protested. “Go on, explain to me how I was supposed to get up.”  
  
“Nevertheless,” Bofur continued, “We’re fighters and what we lacked in movement, we made up for by shouting empty threats.”  
  
“Dwalin, especially, was out for my blood,” Bilbo corroborated, smiling fondly at the memories.  
  
Dís looked at her husband curiously. “And what, pray, did you aim to do to him, once you were cooked up in a stew?”  
  
Dwalin shrugged and took a drink of beer, “I was still working that out. Would’ve been drawn-out and painful, make no mistake.”  
  
“But how did Kíli make a fool of himself?” Fredís asked, obviously desirous that the story continue without commentary.  
  
The dwarves laughed at that. “Well, now, that’s a different, much longer story,” Fíli replied. “It all started the day of his birth, one hot summer night, nearly one hundred and forty years ago, now - ” his speech came to an abrupt halt when his mother cuffed him on the back of his head.  
  
“Let him alone, ankle-biter,” Dís admonished. “So, Bofur, what did my brave, intelligent son do to act an ass?”  
  
The toymaker took up the tale once again, “The trolls thought skinning was too much trouble, you see - lazy buggers, trolls - and so they got hold of Bombur, saying they’d just have him raw. But Bilbo here once again educated ‘em on the finer points of dwarf cookery.”  
  
“What did you say?” Frodo asked.  
  
“I may have implied that Bombur - and, by extension, the rest of them - were infested with parasites. Very bad for digestion.” The hobbits and dwarflings who were hearing the full story for the first time doubled over with laughter  
  
“You’re as bad as a Took!” Merry crowed.  
  
“And nearly as bad as a Brandybuck!” Pippin added.

“Your brother was _furious_ ,” Glóin informed Frerin and Fredís. “Apoplectic with rage.”  
  
“Well, it was an insult!” Kíli pointed out. “He was trying to save our skins, but we were a bit slow about realizing it - and I wasn’t the only one! Thorin knew before we did, gave me a kick in the back to shut me up.”  
  
“Only it didn’t shut you up at all,” Fíli continued with relish. “Instead, my brother, my pride and joy, to, I don’t know, give Bilbo’s tale a ring of truth? Well, he starts screeching - ”  
  
“Óin started it!”  
  
“ _I’ve got parasites! I’ve got HUGE parasites! MINE ARE THE BIGGEST PARASITES!_ ” Fíli’s impression of his brother was so high-pitched and loud that some Elves must surely have overheard and thought an unusually verbal squirrel was complaining of a medical condition in the middle of Rivendell.  
  
“I may have kicked him again after that, I can’t recall,” Thorin walked into the circle by the fire which obediently parted that he might sit down.  
  
“How are the Elves?” Dís asked and Bombur wrapped up the story of the trolls with the famous timely arrival of both Gandalf and the dawn.  
  
“As ever they were.”  
  
“And those from the Blue Mountains and Iron Hills?”  
  
“As ever _they_ were.”  
  
Obviously that exchange meant something to the royal siblings which the others were not privy to for Dís took a moment to process her brothers words before nodding and asking if anyone brought an instrument because she’d like a song. Dwalin had his fiddle and Bofur had his clarinet, the latter nudged Bilbo’s arm and held the pipe out teasingly, “A song, Bilbo?”  
  
The hobbit shook his head. “No, as I’ve told you upteen times, I don’t play!”  
  
“You have written a song, though!” Pippin said, as though his cousin needed reminding.  
  
“Peregrin Took!” Bilbo exclaimed, but it was too late and Bofur, Fíli and Kíli _demanded_ a performance. “I won’t! I am a respectable hobbit and entirely too old to jig besides. Do it yourselves if you’re so keen.”  
  
That was all the encouragement a certain Took and Brandybuck duo required before they were on their feet. They urged Frodo to join them and he insisted Sam take part in the display, but after a bit of protest, the four hobbit lads were striking up a merry tune and the youngest of the dwarves took partners and danced along as well.

"There's an inn of old renown  
Where they brew a beer so brown  
Moon came rolling down the hill  
One Hevensday night to drink his fill!  
  
On a three-stringed fiddle there  
Played the ostler's cat so fair  
The horned cow that night was seen  
To dance a jig upon the green!"  
  
Bilbo was pleased as punch to observe the gaiety and clapped his hands and shouted encouragement when Fíli pulled his mother to her feet and begged her to join them. It meant he was quite alone by the fire, but for the company of Thorin Oakenshield who took out his own pipe for a smoke.  
  
“They seem like lively lads,” Thorin observed, inclining his head toward the singing hobbits. “Are they all yours?”  
  
Bilbo nearly choked on his pipe. Coughing and spluttering he shook his head. “Good gracious, no!” he said, laughing a little shakily. Imagine if those hobbits were _all_ his? Frodo, blessing though he was, had been a handful and when Merry and Pippin got it in their heads to make the trek to Bag End and stir up trouble with the Gaffer’s son and his nephew, well, he was cleaning for hours afterward. Unlike certain dwarves he knew, hobbit children did follow their great big messes with an effort at tidying.  
  
“No, no. No, no, no, no, no. Frodo is my - erm, well, cousin _technically_ , on the Brandybuck side. His parents passed away years ago, boating accident, terrible tragedy, I took him him. Those two rascals making such a racket are Meriadoc and Peregrin - Brandybuck and Took respectively, also cousins. One entirely too clever and the other entirely too foolish to be a good influence on each other. Naturally they’re joined at the hip.”  
  
Chuckling at the memories, he continued, “They trouble they caused me over the years, constantly underfoot! And when Frodo came to live with me it seemed I could never keep the front hall clean, they were forever tracking in mud, carrying frogs in their pockets, the most ghastly...ah, but they’re good lads. The other is of no relation at all, but would that he were, he’s the most sensible. Samwise Gamgee, my gardener’s son. Very sweet-hearted, that one, I taught him his letters. His father didn’t see much use for it, but he was eager to learn, delightful pupil, I didn’t see the harm.”  
  
Thorin mulled that rambling explanation over in his mind as he watched his sister’s children kick up a merry fray, Fíli spinning Fredís around as she shrieked with laughter, Kíli arm in arm with Frerin, cajoling his usually quiet younger brother into a dance. “So. Yours, then?”  
  
Bilbo opened his mouth to protest, but stopped when he looked at little group of hobbits, arms round one another, flushed and beaming. “Yes,” he admitted at last. “I suppose so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song the hobbits sing is "The Cat and the Moon" from Lord of the Rings: The Musical based on one of the songs Bilbo's meant to have written "The Man in the Moon Stayed Up too Late" (if I ever wrote a modern AU, Bilbo would basically be Eric Carle or Shel Silverstein and write awesome children's books). It is freaking AWESOME, if you haven't heard it, you need to YouTube it. Go on, I'll wait.


	4. Chapter 4

“But how are you?” the hobbit asked, recalling that it was rude to monopolize a conversation. “It’s been...well, a very long time. Some of the Company brought me news from Erebor, you are serving your people well, I hear.”  
  
Such a statement would make the average person smile, but not Thorin Oakenshield. He simply nodded, accepting his former burglar’s words without actually taking the compliment. “I perform my duty,” he replied evenly.  
  
Bilbo nodded, but he was well aware that a simple hobbit likely had no idea what the duties of a great king entailed. He was equally aware that he did not _want_ to know. “And duty called you to Rivendell?” he asked, a small smile playing around his lips. “I would have thought you’d never want to see this place again.”  
  
“ _Gandalf_ called me,” Thorin clarified. Despite his earlier meeting with the Elves that did not result in shouts and swears and severed limbs (which Bilbo took to mean, it went rather well), it was clear that his old friend had not given up the last of his mistrust of the fairest and wisest of Middle Earth’s people. “And there were other portents, bad omens, strange messengers seeking an audience with me. It seemed folly to ignore it.”  
  
“Bad omens?” the hobbit repeated. “What sort of messengers?”  
  
“Strange folk who would not show their faces nor give their names. I refused to meet them, Gloin intercepted many of them, they spoke...of impossible things.” Thorins dark brows knit together and a deeply troubled look settled over his face. Quite deliberately, he watched his sister’s children, staring as though they were a safe beacon in a chaotic world. Bilbo was about to comment on something benign, food, maybe a safe topic, when Thorin spoke again. “They promised a return of the ring of power to the Lonely Mountain.”  
  
Bilbo’s heart sank like a stone and the very words made him shiver. Even hearing of the cursed thing made something dark and greedy claw its way up his throat, a burning beyond hunger or thirst. It was a good thing the ring was well out of his grasp; he would not be able to give it up a second time, he knew. Yet something about Thorin’s words struck him as odd.  
  
“Return?” he asked, keeping his voice quiet so as not to trouble the other’s in their merrymaking. Dís, of all the Dwarves, had a sixth sense for marking upset in her brother and would soon come to them to pull him out of his sulk.  
  
“Seven Rings were forged for the Dwarf-lords, long ago. One for each of the Seven Kingdoms,” Thorin answered, his own voice low and his eyes far away. “One remained passed down through the generations who ruled Erebor, but it was lost long ago. No one knows what became of it.”  
  
“Who was the last in your line to possess it?”  
  
Thorin’s face did not change, his voice did not tremble, but Bilbo sensed that it was only through great effort that the king was able to answer his question. In a low voice, so quiet the hobbit would not have heard were he not straining his ears, Thorin replied, “My father.”

There was nothing more to be said about it. Gandalf was the last soul who had any interaction with Thráin before his death. Though the wizard did not speak of it to the Company, it was widely known among the Dwarves that the King was driven out of his mind with the pressure of all he had lost following the Battle of Azanulbizar. Until this day, Bilbo did not know that he was in possession of a Ring of Power, that the influence of the ring turned grief to madness. Thorin did not speak of his forefathers much, neither did Fli or Kíli, that he recalled. They were so young, at the time of their quest, minds ever on the present. For their uncle, who lived so much in the past, not to speak of his forebears was an odd omission, but Bilbo did not press the king-in-exile on it, at the time. He hardly thought Thorin would have answered him if he had.  
  
The truth was, Thorin had few good memories of his father and those he did hold were tainted with the knowledge of what he would become. It was easier to pity his grandfather for his mistakes, under the sway of the dragon sickness as he’d been. Painful as it was to admit it, Thrór was better off in many ways after their exile than he was immediately before. Oh, he burned with anger for the Worm and wanted nothing more than to return to his mountain and his treasure, but the farther they journeyed from Erebor the less the fever shone brightly in his eyes. Without the ability to surround himself with gold, he thought more of his people and his family. Ironically, when they were at their lowest, Thrór was at his best.  
  
It was not so with Thráin. It was not the gold madness that ensnared him, but something wholly different. While Thrór withdrew into himself at the worst times in his affliction, Thrain seemed to be retreating, fleeing into the arms of something far away. Thorin could sometimes crack his grandfather’s shell, by pleading or cajoling and he would be himself once again, but it was not so with his father. For Thrór, the loving pleas of his family had to penetrate the noise of his own greed; Thrain just seemed too far away to hear their cries.  
  
A pleasant voice beside him drew Thorin away from his thoughts. “Well, troubling circumstances or not, I _am_ pleased to see you again.”  
  
Thorin smiled, very briefly. “As am I, burglar. It’s a pity you did not find time to travel to Erebor, I hope you knew you were always welcome.”  
  
Bilbo sighed, almost wistfully, “Yes, well, time gets away from all of us, sooner or later. I wish I visited too, but...well, the moving finger writes...ah, I’ve forgotten the rest.” He looked up at Thorin with an expression of bland acceptance. “This trip to Rivendell was my last adventure, I’m afraid.”

The halfling’s words stayed with Thorin long after Bilbo fended off the protests of the young hobbits and his nephews when he declared it was well past time he was in bed. The young folk made sport for a while before they went their separate ways and found their rooms for the night. Dís caught up with her brother just outside the door of the room he was sharing with his heirs. “Your burglar is much older than he was, isn’t he?” she asked him, apropos of nothing.  
  
Thorin shrugged her words off, “So are we all.”  
  
His sister gave him a wry look, as if to say, _Not as old as all that,_ but she kept her thoughts to herself on that account. “I’d no idea hobbits were so short-lived.”  
  
Nodding, Thorin replied, “Nearly as short-lived as Men, and he had already lived nearly half his life by the time he joined us.” It was the first thought he had when he saw their hobbit again after so many decades; had not Fate conspired to bring them together once again, he might never have laid eyes on Bilbo Baggins in this world.  
  
“Did the Lord Elrond speak much of what will be discussed on the morrow?” Dís asked, abruptly changing the subject. It had been decided even before they arrived in Rivendell that she would attend the formal meeting with him, along with Fíli and Kíli, Glóin and Gimli. It was not a common practice for dwarrow noblewomen to consult with other races abroad, but his sister was not the typical dwarrow-noblewoman and Thorin depended on her counsel in most matters. She was blessed by their Maker with a clearer head than his.  
  
“Not much, no. He spoke of a gathering darkness and I could not disagree with him. Even without the strangers at our gates, there is a foulness in the air that portends tragedy.”  
  
“Aye,” his sister agreed sorrowfully. Their people suffered much and she hoped her younger children’s lives would be untouched by pain, but she feared their carefree days might soon come to an end. “Did you tell Bilbo _exactly_ what those strangers asked of us?”  
  
Thorin shook his head, “No. He seems...burdened. I did not want to add to his troubles. Anyway, he was never in any danger from us. Not a Dwarf lives in Erebor who would betray Bilbo Baggins, but that I would see their tongues cut from their throats and fed to ravens.”  
  
Dís smiled, “You ever were a loyal friend.” She crossed the few short steps to her brother’s side and kissed him on the cheek before turning toward her own bedchamber. “Sleep well, brother. Sweet dreams.”  
  
But Thorin did not have sweet dreams, for his mind was full of warnings. Gold rings, surrounded by flame blazed bright behind his closed eyelids, his ears rang with the clanging of hammers on anvils and he thought he heard his father’s voice, thin and far-away sounding warning him to keep his distance. “ _Take care!_ ” he shouted in alarm. “ _You’ll burn yourself, lad!_ ”  
  
And lurking at the edge of his vision were those darkly-clad, hooded strangers with black eyes and rotten teeth. “ _Where is the halfling, Bilbo Baggins? Your reward shall be great and your power beyond imagining if you but tell us where he is._ ”  
  
The King Under the Mountain passed a fitful night in Rivendell and when he woke in the sunshine of his Elvish chambers the next morning, he could taste ash on his tongue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and this chapter was super-short because I'm stalling before I have to write the actual Council of Elrond scene. Because I am super lame sometimes. I hope you all enjoyed the frothy cocoa portion of the fic, settle in for the bitter coffee of Thorin's angst.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And the section that's haunted my nightmares: The Council of Elrond! Being snowed-in makes me awfully productive, I'm very happy to get this done before I have to rejoin the real world again.

The Dwarves of Erebor rose early to complete their morning abulations. Beards were braided with nary a hair out of place and Dís wound gold thread in her hair, prompting her daughter to say admiringly that she looked very beautiful.  
  
“Nonsense,” her father smiled from the doorway of their room. “Your mother looks beautiful every day.”  
  
“Flatterer,” Dís grinned. “But thank you both all the same.”  
  
“You’ll be the loveliest lady at the Council,” Fredís predicted.  
  
Her mother smiled again, but privately thought to herself that the other races in attendance would likely assume her to be a particularly well-groomed prince. Her own princes certainly looked very handsome, as did her elder brother, though he privately confessed to her that the crown suited him ill. For all that he was happy to reclaim their homeland and however confidently he ruled, the trappings of his office were uncomfortable at times. Dís felt the same way herself, but some forms had to be abided by.  
  
“We’ve got to go in looking better than Dáin’s folk,” Dís shrugged as Gimli and Glóin emerged from their chamber. All the Dwarves of Erebor wore their best furs, lined with the finest bejeweled trim, courtesy of Master Dori. Even if he did not want to make the journey to the Elvish kingdom himself, he could still make his mark on the proceedings.  
  
“Is it a competition, then? Gimli asked, a glint in his eye. He was unusually competitive, even for a Dwarf and noting got his blood thrumming more than the expectation of a contest.  
  
“Oh, aye,” Fíli nodded. “Mam’s got money on it, like as not.” The patter of feet running down the hall made their heads turn and Ori came speeding at them, skidding to a halt just before he knocked into his king.  
  
“Promise me you’ll pay attention,” he begged the princes without preamble. In contrast to his party, he was only half dressed, but he had his quill in hand already. “If I’m to make a proper account of this Council, I’ll need accurate recollections and...”  
  
“What, you don’t trust us?” Kíli asked, his face the picture of innocence.  
  
Ori didn’t even take a minute to consider the question. “Not really, no.”  
  
“Well, if we don’t pay attention, there’s Gimli,” Fíli pointed out, punching his friend hard on the arm. “Among the three of us you should get...something like the truth.”  
  
“Come along,” Thorin said, sweeping down the corridor. “There is much to do and if we _are_ to present our best selves, we ought not be late.”  
  
But their King did pause when he saw the newly familiar white head of Bilbo Baggins bidding his nephew farewell. “Are you coming to this Council?” Thorin asked, halting the whole company to speak to the halfling.  
  
“I am not, no,” Bilbo said and there was something dark and troubled in his eyes, an expression Thorin did not recognize. “It’s...well, best if I stay behind, really.” Taking in his friends in their finery, he smiled at them and said, “You look very nice. Very fine.”  
  
Thorin was not the greatest of Middle-earth’s diplomats, but he knew a deflection when he saw one. Inclining his head, the King Under the Mountain gave the hobbit another searching look before he said, “Well, I suppose we will see one another again soon enough.”  
  
“I think so, I hope so,” Bilbo smiled and some of the unhappiness went out of his eyes. It was back with a vengeance when he caught the Lady Dís by her arm and bade her stay with him a moment. “You’ll look after him, won’t you?” he asked, looking anxiously at Thorin’s back.  
  
“I always have,” she replied immediately, bending to speak to Bilbo as privately as they could. “You know something. Is he in danger?”  
  
Bilbo shook his head. “Not the kind you’re thinking of. Or perhaps it is...” he met her eyes meaningfully and said, “The danger comes from _within_. Remember your grandfather...remember your father.” And he retreated back into his rooms before she could question him again, shutting the door with a quiet click.

Dís rejoined her party, walking at a quick clip, mind a-whirl. Remember her grandfather? Her father? Victims of madness and death, a fate her brother narrowly escaped more than sixty years ago. And what danger was there for him now, in Rivendell, that would have him walking that razor’s edge again? The halfling seemed deadly serious when he spoke to her and she would heed his words, but it would have been helpful if he’d told her what exactly it was she needed to be mindful of.  
  
The place where their meeting was to occur was well-guarded by Elves and Dwalin was stopped just outside and urged to go back to his room or else, perhaps take a walk and enjoy the gardens and views. “I’m staying right here,” he said, grip on the axes he always held when the security of his regents was concerned. The Elves thought it best not to trouble them, so they did not harangue the Dwarf any further, provided he did not step into the Council hall.  
  
One of the princes, however, noticed that something small and apparently unseen by the tall Elvish guards, breached their defenses and was crouched behind a delicately carved column. Breaking away from the group, he wandered as if inspecting the stonework and was amused to see it was one of their hobbit friends from the night before. Which one he couldn’t tell, but he thought he might say hello, in any case.  
  
“Hey,” Fíli whispered, giving one of his dance partners a poke in the back of his curly brown head. The hobbit turned around, startled...Merry, he thought that one was called. “You supposed to be here?”  
  
The halfling smiled awkwardly. “Ah...no?”  
  
The dwarf prince, heir to the throne of Erebor regarded him for a moment before shrugging and saying, “Alright.” Leaving young Merry to himself he jogged off to join the rest of his family in the circle of chairs that comprised the council.  
  
They were seated right next to the representatives of the Iron Hills - _Mam’ll love that_ , Fíli thought wryly to himself. The older dwarves sat in chairs that were thoughtfully sized to accommodate them and the younger of their party stood behind their forebears. Fíli behind Thorin, Kíli behind Dís and Gimli behind Glóin.  
  
Lord Elrond, who hosted the Company of Thorin Oakenshield in these walls so many years before seemed changed. Whereas, during the Quest for Erebor he seemed amused, almost entertained by his guests, not as stand-offish as most of his kind, he spoke with such a dignified and dour mein he was almost a different creature entirely.  
  
“You are here to answer the threat of Mordor. Middle-earth stands upon the brink of destruction,” he said, not one to beat around the bush, evidently. “You will unite or you will fall. Each race is bound to this fate, this one doom.” Gesturing to a stand before him, he commanded, “Bring forth the ring, Frodo.”  
  
Bilbo’s young nephew, so small among these Men, Elves and Dwarves who made up the Council, came forward slowly and dropped a simple gold ring in the center of the circle.  
  
The effect it had upon the assembled races was immediate. Many leaned forward in their seats, drumming fingers on the arms of their chairs that itched to reach out and _take_. Some murmured, to their fellows, to themselves, nearly all shifted a bit to get closer to it.  
  
Beside his sister, Thorin had gone so still, Dís feared he had forgotten to breathe. One of her hands slid silently over his and he turned his palm over, clutching her fingers as though he meant to break them. The pain was good for her; she too longed to rise up, snatch the ring and bury it deep in the bowels of the Lonely Mountain where none would find it. For a moment, that simple, diabolical _wanting_ consumed her and she felt a longing that was a palpable physical ache. Her mouth was dry; she wanted water, but it would not quench the fire within her.  
  
Was this what drove her father to wander alone? Was this what shut her grandfather up in his treasure room all those long years ago? Was this what made her brother dream of war for a few chests of gold?  
  
If it was, if _this_ was what fevered their brains and clouded their hearts and they suffered with it for hours, days, years...any lingering resentment she might still harbor in her bosom faded. She forgave them all instantly.

One of the Men rose and his voice, talking of dreams and portents, did nothing to break the foul, dreamlike spell cast about them. As his long fingers inched toward the Ring, she sensed more than felt Fíli move behind her; arming himself. Dís tore her eyes away from the cursed thing and looked at her son.  
  
“Fíli,” she hissed. He did not hear her. “Inùdoy,” she tried again and the shock of using their sacred language in so public a setting penetrated her son’s mind at last. “Ikhuzh.” Her eldest son’s blue eyes fell, he saw his uncle’s vice-like grip on his mother’s white and bloodless fingers and he stood stock-still behind him, swallowing hard.  
  
Then the wizard rose - and how he rose! - the sky itself seemed to go dark under Gandalf’s command, he was no longer a doddering old man, but an ancient, powerful thing. As old as the world itself.  
  
The sun came back, the Man was in his chair and Thorin stopped squeezing the life out of his sister’s hand. Lord Elrond seemed angered by the wizard’s actions, though none of the assembled Dwarves or men understood a word of his uttering.  
  
His next words, however, there could be no doubt of, “The Ring is altogether evil.”  
  
Though the dwarrow-woman’s mind readily accepted them, her heart - nay, her very _soul_ \- rebelled at the notion. _It is not_ , a tantalizing voice seemed to whisper. _How could such a thing be evil? It is a gift of the Earth. And Dwarves were given the Earth to mine and bend by the Creator. Surely it is rightfully yours._  
  
All the other races must surely be hearing the same thing, for the Man who stood earlier also proclaimed it a gift - though for vastly different reasons.  
  
“You cannot wield it,” another Man spoke, with authority despite his humble outer trappings. “None of us can. The One Ring answers to Sauron alone. It has no other master.”  
  
There a quarrel between these Men, one apparently known to the Elves and such, it had no importance to the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain. When the matter was brought back to the Ring, then their full attention would be warranted.  
  
“The Ring must be destroyed,” Lord Elrond urged. For an instant, all was silence. Yes, _of course_ the Ring must be destroyed. But then, of course it must not. What a waste it would be. What a waste.  
  
Of all the Erebor Dwarves, the only one who acted with a clear head in this matter was, surprisingly, the youngest of them. Gimli charged forward with his axe before anyone could cry out to stop him. What happened next would shock the heirs of Durin out of their stupor; Gimli’s axe head shattered upon contact with the Ring, but the little circle of gold sat serene and undented; it did not even move from where it had been placed by the halfling. Fíli and Kíli rushed forward to help their friend to his feet, then all three of them retreated back to stand behind the circle of chairs as though that would offer them protection from the foul thing before them.  
  
“The Ring was made in the fires of Mount Doom,” the Elven Lord explained. “Only there can it be unmade. It must be taken deep into Mordor and cast back into the firey chasm from whence it came. One of you must do this.”  
  
Silence.  
  
Then the talkative man started in again. “One does not simply walk into Mordor,” he moaned, head in his hands, looking for all the world like a weary schoolmaster surrounded by idiot pupils as he explained the folly of such an attempt.  
  
The Elf who defended the shabbier Man took to his feet again, “Have you heard nothing Lord Elrond has said? The Ring must be destroyed!”  
  
“And I suppose you think you’re the one to do it?” Gimli sneered combatively.  
  
Thorin cast livid blue eyes at the young dwarf and his own father hissed, “ _Gimli! Enough!_ ”

But it was too late. Soon Gimli stalked around to the front of the circle to confront the Elf, then the Elves were on their feet and because the Elves stood up, the Dwarves had to stand up. When a single Dwarf picked a fight with an Elf, however foolish the cause, custom demanded that others must rally round even the foolhardiest of their own race. It was a din of insults and threats, even those from the Iron Hills and Blue Mountains who had no conflict with the Elves in their regions, declared they would not see an Elf tasked with destroying the One Ring. The only Dwarf who kept his seat was Thorin, silent and still.  
  
Dís, trying to keep an eye on her sons and her brother at once managed to catch the gaze of Lord Elrond and held it a moment. In that brief meeting of their eyes, they shared a unique and brief bond. It was the sort of connection, powerful, but not long to last, of two people who had next to nothing in common, finding that they were both feeling the same thing at the same time. And the feeling was an overwhelming sense of exasperation with everyone else around them.  
  
Then the wizard passed between them, blocking Dís’s line of vision and she found herself caught between Kíli and one of the Mirkwood elves, on the one hand shouting that if the Elf thought to harm a _hair_ on her son’s head, he would lose his hand, and on the other, hadn’t they all better sit down, since this squabbling was going nowhere?  
  
Out of the chaos came one small but determined voice. “I will take it!” That did not get anyone’s attention, so the halfling spoke again, “I will take it! I will take the Ring to Mordor. Though I do not know the way.”  
  
The wizard offered his aid to the halfling and so too did the Men, then Elf and their Gimli. Neither of her sons said a word about it, though Dís glanced at them to warn them with her eyes if she had to that it would be more dangerous for them to go on this quest than they could imagine. They did not need her caution; they felt the power of the Ring themselves and knew they could not offer any help that would make it a temptation to them.  
  
When the Council broke, the Dwarves of Erebor made their way slowly back to their chambers, their minds and hearts heavy. Dwalin opened his mouth to inquire as to what occurred, but shut it when his wife looked at him and shook her head. As was their wont, Fíli and Kíli tried to ease their burdens and the burdens of those they loved by making light of the whole situation.  
  
“That Man really like to talk, didn’t he?” Kíli mused aloud.  
  
“Which one?” Fíli asked him.  
  
“You know,” his brother gestured vaguely. “The Man...with the...well, he had a bit of a beard.”  
  
Fíli shrugged. “I couldn’t tell ‘em apart for the life of me.” Giving Gimli a pat on the back he said, “You’ve got your own proper adventure now, eh? Won’t always be in our shadow?” The smile he gave his friend did not meet his eyes.

Before Gimli could give any answer (probably to argue that the only time he ever stood in Fíli’s shadow was when the taller dwarf stood in front of him), but running feet coming at them down the hallway interrupted him.  
  
“So, what happened?” Ori asked eagerly, dressed now, and desirous of taking notes.  
  
Fíli and Kíli exchanged a glance before giving him a breakdown of their time at Council, “Gimli tried to destroy the Ring of the dark lord Sauron -”  
  
“What?” Ori’s face screwed up in confusion and he looked from one brother to the other. “I thought that was a myth.”  
  
“Apparently not,” Kíli shrugged. “Anway, Gimli tried doing away with it with an axe.”  
  
“But he was knocked on his arse,” Fíli said. “Then there was a row between two Men, who may or may not be lords of the same kingdom, that was a little vague. Couldn’t tell ‘em apart, all their lot look alike.”  
  
“And then everyone was shouting, so it was quite difficult to hear,” Kíli turned to his brother. “Did you join in?”  
  
“I might have done, yeah,” he said vaguely. “I dunno, something about weed-eaters and low stamina, seemed the thing to do. Anyway, the long and short of it is, Bilbo’s nephew agreed to take the Ring of Power and drop it into the fires of Mount Doom.”  
  
“He’ll be accompanied by Gandalf, those two fighting Lords, an Elf...possibly one of the Mirkwood Elves who held us captive, you remember, and our own Gimli,” Kíli continued.  
  
“And his three hobbit friends, his cousins and his gardner,” Fíli concluded. “I think that’s all there was to say, don’t you agree brother?”  
  
Ori looked between the two of them before he threw his quill on the ground in despair. “You’re both hopeless!” he cried. “Couldn’t you remember one fact? Do you think I’m barmy? You just made that whole thing up, didn’t you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dís's two utterances in Khuzdul in this chapter came from the dwarrow-scholar's English-Khuzdul dictionary, accessible from here: http://dwarrowscholar.mymiddleearth.com/2012/06/27/neo-khuzdul-dictionaries-for-lotro-dwarves/ 
> 
> Here's a handy translation for the words: "inùdoy" = "son" and "ikhuzh" = "stop."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And we're back to Deep Thoughts with Thorin, King Under the Mountain of Self-Loathing. Where's that cocoa from before?

“You need to speak to him,” Dwalin informed his wife as the sun set on Rivendell.  
  
There was no need to clarify who ‘he’ was, they both knew he could mean no one but Thorin, who, following the Council, sequestered himself in his room and would see no one. It reminded Dís so strongly of the actions of another King Under the Mountain that she had to suppress a shudder.  
  
“It’s only been a few hours,” she said, more to remind herself that her brother was not so badly off. Despite her concern, she knew Thorin would react fearfully if she came to him in concern over his solitude. He was entitled to some peace, after all, but it was so difficult to tell where contemplation ended and despair began.  
  
Dwalin would take no chances. “If you won’t, I will,” he declared and his wife looked up at him, eyebrows raised.  
  
“You absolutely will not,” she said, not to shame him, but because they both knew it was the truth. Dwalin loved Thorin like his own brother, but it was a selfless love. He would not speak a word against his king, even when he knew in his heart that he was wrong or ill. It fell to Dís to do that and at times it made her feel heartless. Did it mean she loved her brother less that she questioned his judgment? No, but that did not make contradicting and second-guessing him any easier.  
  
Kneeling before his beloved, Dwalin took her face in both his large, calloused hands, thumbs smoothing her beard down tenderly. “He has courage, honor and strength enough to bear the responsibility of rule,” he said simply. “You have wisdom, my love, and that is what he sorely needs.”  
  
Dís smiled sadly, her own broad, square hands coming up to cover Dwalin’s. “Dwarves are not renowned for wisdom.”  
  
“I always said you were special.”  
  
“You always said I was a menace.”  
  
“That too,” Dwalin smiled and kissed her before he rose. “Will you go now?”  
  
Nodding, she rose from the seat she’d taken on what was probably a footstool for the Elves, but served well enough as a chair for one of her race. As she crossed the room, she spared one more look back at the first and last great love of her life. “You’re a paragon, Dwalin, son of Fundin,” she said, as ever she had. “Too good to be real.”  
  
The corridors of Rivendell were full of activity, Elves wafted this way and that. It was very different from Erebor, light instead of dark, airy instead of shut-in and the residents made no sound as their soft-soled shoes seemed scarcely to touch the ground as they walked. Damned unsettling, if you asked Dís and she would be pleased to be rid of the place at last. The tread of her boots on the sound, the rustle of the heavy fabrics she wore were grounding and comforting. Knocking lightly on the door to Thorin’s chamber, she pushed the door open, poking her head in first and finding her brother kneeling alone on the floor.  
  
After the Council, Dís took her hair down from its careful arrangement, letting her braids flow down her back as they usually did. Her clothes too were different, simpler. Thorin was dressed to hold court, as he was when they descended into the council chamber, but his crown of office was abandoned on the ground beside him. Dís knelt before her brother and he looked up, a smile or a grimace briefly twisting his mouth.

“I thought you might come,” he said and his sister was unutterably relieved. If he spoke first, it meant had not gone where she could not follow.

Taking her brother’s hands in hers Dís asked, “What troubles you?”  
  
It would do him no good to deflect and claim he was perfectly fine; it was a lie unworthy of him. Thorin took a deep, shuddering breath and gripped his sister’s hands tightly, though not nearly as tightly as he had when faced with the Ring. The Ring. Even the memory of the blessed, cursed thing made his blood blaze in his veins. He wanted to take up his sword, cut the head from the hobbit who bore the little band of gold and tear it, streaked in blood, from the stump left behind. And then he wanted to be sick.  
  
“I am troubled by what evil I am capable of,” he answered quietly, eyes on their joined hands. “And what weakness.”  
  
“You thought you were weak today?” Dís asked, disbelieving. “I did not see weakness.”  
  
Thorin laughed mirthlessly. “Did you not? Then we attended different meetings, for I saw a king so paralyzed by fear he could not move.”  
  
“Obviously we attended different meetings, but that’s to be expected, you’re forever getting lost,” Dís tried to smile, but her brother would not look at her and did not see it. Thorin was forever holding a warped mirror to himself and hating what he saw reflected back, guilt and his doubt plagued him since he was young and took on the mantle of king. A mantle she saw now that he was too young to be yoked with and the mother in her grieved for what her brother had taken from him when the dragon came and those who should have led them could not fulfill their duty.  
  
“Lost,” he muttered darkly. “I suppose I am.”  
  
“But you always find your way back to us.” This time, when his sister smiled at him, Thorin raised his bowed head and saw it. “I saw strength in you today. I saw a king who knew well what wickedness - you called it evil - we are all capable of and held it in check.”  
  
Shaking his head, Thorin brought Dís’s hands to his mouth and kissed them, leaning his forehead on her fingers. “I was not entirely alone in that.”  
  
“Nor would I have you be!” Frustration was creeping into her voice, but she could not help it. Thorin, as ever, was too hard on himself. Not every vice was a sin in the making and not every burden ought to be shouldered alone. “I may not remember our father and grandfather as you do, but I do know that by forsaking all company when they were at their lowest only made it all the worse for them. I will not have you tread the same path they did, I won’t allow it. Do you understand me? I won’t let you be alone.”  
  
The steely determination in her voice gave her brother strength. Though she did not bear the title, Dís was as noble a Queen as Erebor ever boasted. “I am sending a lad of one-hundred and twenty-five years to complete an impossible task,” Thorin said, mournfully. “He has a strength that I lack.”  
  
“No, you have a burden he does not feel as deeply,” Dís corrected him. “Gimli was not overcome as we were, he is an able fighter and good dwarf. He will do our people proud in this, I am sure he will.”  
  
“Did you feel it?” Thorin asked, looking his sister desperately in the eyes. What fueled the desperation he could not say, nor could he decide what he wanted his sister’s answer to be. To know that she too was tempted would be a comfort and alleviate some of the guilt that threatened to be his undoing. But Dís was a pillar of strength to him, all those years ago the dragon sickness did not touch her, nor did it ever ensnare her. If she was unaffected, it meant there was hope for him, one tiny part of his own soul might remain clean of its taint.  
  
After only a moment’s hesitation, she replied, “I did.” Thorin dropped her hands from his, but she tilted his chin up and forced him to look in her eyes. “But I did not succumb. And neither did you. And soon the Ring will be taken from our midsts and it needn’t trouble you any longer - ”  
  
A tentative knocking on the door cut her off. Thinking it was one of her children looking for her Dís bit back a curse and rose to her feet. “Get up off the floor, please,” she urged Thorin holding out a hand to tug him upright. He accepted it, but stood of his own volition. It would not do for one of his heirs to see him on his knees, as one begging. The crown remained where it was on the ground, like a blind metal-rimmed eye.

When both brother and sister were once again presentable, Dís opened the door a crack, but the person on the other side was not who she expected to see. “Bilbo!” she cried, a wide smile breaking over her face. “What a surprise, I thought you’d be one of my bratlings come to complain about what they’d been given for dinner.”  
  
The old hobbit chuckled, “Well, I’m sure anything they’d turn their noses up at, mine would eat, so it’s all one. I’m sorry to bother you, I thought this was your brother’s room.”  
  
“It is,” she said, opening the door wider and bidding him enter. “We were just having a chat about the Council, you should have come, there was nearly a brawl.”  
  
“A brawl? Frodo did not mention that,” Bilbo said with interest, eyes crinkling with mirth. “Do I need to ask who started it?”  
  
“I’m proud to say it was us,” Dís winked at him. “We have a reputation to maintain, after all.” Thorin was all silence behind her, staring at Bilbo with something dark and unfathomable in his eyes. She caught her brother’s gaze and tried to communicate something to him with her eyes. _Stop,_ she thought. _Stop doing this to yourself._  
  
“Were you busy?” Bilbo asked, sensing the tension in the room. “Should I go?”  
  
“No, no, I was just leaving, as a matter of fact and Thorin could do with some company,” Dís said, patting the hobbit absently on the shoulder, so thin and frail-seeming beneath her hand. Her observation of the previous night was correct; he had grown old. “I’ll see you before long, I expect, we’ll see if we can’t coax Bofur into playing for us again.”  
  
“I’d like that,” Bilbo replied.  
  
“Well, then, it’s as good as done,” Dís assured him, making for the door. “If I tell Bofur his own dear burglar wants a song, I’d not be surprised if he goes running to play you a tune the moment I’m done requesting it. Fair warning.” And with another warm smile at the the both of them, she swept out, closing the door behind her with an audible click.  
  
Thorin missed nearly all of their exchange, for he was overcome with haunting memories of his past. Memories of his hands around the halfling’s throat, crazed utterances born of anger and betrayal and the satisfying knowledge that he would dash the traitor’s head on the rocks and his blood would christen his reign as king.  
  
On good days, Thorin did not recall his madness under the mountain. On fair days, he could rationalize it away as not being in his right mind, it was not he himself who thought so callously of murder. On his worst and most honest days, he knew that it had been him all along and that the capacity for cruelty and greed lay in his heart, like red-hot coals hiding beneath the cold cinders.  
  
“Are you alright?” Bilbo asked, breaking the silence and looking at Thorin with a furrowed brow. “You look...unwell.” Not ill, but not entirely healthy either.  
  
“There has been a great deal on my mind,” the king admitted. “I was reminded of days I would prefer to forget.”  
  
“Oh,” the hobbit was not sure how to respond. This was the first time he and Thorin had been entirely alone that he could recall. And what did a great king have to say to a little halfling anyway? But it was the nature of hobbits to be helpful and so Bilbo asked, “Do you want to...speak about it? Or speak of anything else _but_ that?”  
  
“Do you know what your nephew has agreed to do?” Thorin said, not answering his friend’s question because he honestly did not know the answer. Yet again, his mind was pulled in two different directions and he did not know how to reconcile them; it made him feel very weary.  
  
Bilbo nodded gravely. “Yes. I wish...I wish many things. That it was not he who was tasked with this, but Frodo is a good, pure soul. And goodness and purity will dispel evil and decay. I do believe that. I have to.”  
  
“Do you really believe in that? Good souls?” Thorin asked him curiously.  
  
“Oh yes,” Bilbo replied immediately. “I’m happy to report that nearly everyone I’ve ever met has been a good soul. Well, some of the Sackville-Bagginses are a little dingy around the edges, but they’re not all bad. They’re all married so at least one other person in the world likes them.”

“What do you make of me, if you judge souls?”  
  
Bilbo laughed nervously, not quite understanding the question put to him. “Why, because you’re not married? Some of the _best_ I’ve ever known have been unmarried, _I’m_ not married and if I thought all single people were bad sorts, I’d have a pretty low opinion of myself.”  
  
“I meant to kill you once.”  
  
It was some years now since Bilbo was confronted by the full force of brutal Dwarvish honesty and it left his head reeling. Hobbits tried so hard to avoid giving offense (to one’s face, anyway, he’d been aware of the nickname ‘Mad Baggins’ for half a century). “But you didn’t,” the halfling reasoned. “I mean, it wasn’t one of your _proudest_ moments...I hope...but you recollected yourself enough to settle on banishment instead, which is a much nicer sentence, I think.”  
  
The bright smile on his former burglar’s face was incomprehensible to Thorin. “You have forgiven me, then?”  
  
“Of course,” Bilbo replied promptly and earnestly. “I told you that years ago. Water under the bridge, don’t you remember?”  
  
It was true. On what might have been his deathbed under different circumstances, Thorin asked the hobbit’s pardon and it was granted him, with a full heart. But just because Bilbo forgave him readily, it did not follow that Thorin was so quick to forgive himself.  
  
“I remember,” Thorin admitted. “But I was reminded of the deed itself and not your forgiveness today.”  
  
“Was it...” Bilbo began to speak, but seemed to think better of it and shook his head, suddenly mute.  
  
Thorin caught his eye and urged him to go on.  
  
“The Ring?” he asked, and there was a tremor in his voice as he spoke, a suppressed longing that made the King Under the Mountain look at him with new eyes as something new bonded them together: understanding. “But you withstood it?” the hobbit asked. “The...temptation?”  
  
“I did,” Thorin said after a momentary pause. “Not easily.”  
  
“Oh, no, never easily, but you _did_ ,” Bilbo walked to his side and placed a hand on Thorin’s arm. There was a look in the hobbit’s eyes that was new to Thorin, a look of pride. “And soon it will be far away and gone forever.”  
  
“The Ring, yes,” the king sighed tiredly. “But, if it is the Maker’s will, I will remain. And I need no Ring to tempt me to madness.”  
  
The hand on his arm tightened slightly. “Perhaps it isn’t my place, but I think you’re not giving yourself enough credit. For here you are, whole and sane as ever I’ve seen you. And since you’ve been so good as to remind me, I remember what you look like when you are...not. So I think I’m rather an authority.”  
  
It seemed impossible that the halfling would smile after bringing up so haunting a memory, but he did just that. “You are a strange creature,” Thorin said, his mouth turning up at the edges slightly. “You have a capacity for forgiveness I wonder at.”  
  
“Well, Hobbits are not Dwarves,” Bilbo shrugged. “We don’t tend to hold grudges. If we did, we’d have no one to invite over for dinner and eating by oneself is a lonely way to pass the evening.” Hearing the chiming of bells in the distance, he chuckled and said, “That’s supper! Join me? I think Lord Elrond has taken care to provide foods that will tempt the Dwarvish palate after last night.”  
  
“I will,” Thorin replied, genuinely smiling now. “As you say, it's not good to be alone.”


	7. Chapter 7

The Elves of Rivendell did learn from their past indiscretion for the place the Dwarves occupied for dinner was groaning with platters of beef, a particular delicacy among Dwarrows. There was usually a dearth of wide open fields for grazing and the cultivation of cattle in the mountains, so beef needed to be imported at great expense. It was a food for kings and only ever consumed in great quantities for important feasts, usually the celebration of a marriage or birth. The last time any of the Erebor Dwarves had eaten beef was on the occasion of Kíli’s son’s birth and that was ten years ago.  
  
“Does this make up for their rudeness, you think?” Kíli asked his brother, tearing a tender slab of hot, roast meat from the platter in front of them. There were forks provided, but why bother when hands served just as well?  
  
Fíli’s mouth was full but he answered anyway, “I think this is the greatest step toward repairing the damaged relationship between Dwarves and Elves the world has ever seen.”  
  
On Kíli’s other side, Gimli harrumphed. “I’d not take it that far,” he grumbled. Cousins they may be, but his affairs at Erebor rarely involved interaction with other races. All Gimli knew of Elves was that they favored leafy greens, refused aid to their people in their time of need, imprisoned his father and once sought to wage war against the Lonely Mountain claiming their right to its treasure. It would take many more heads of cattle to absolve them of wrongdoing.  
  
“You haven’t had enough to eat,” Fíli reasoned, sliding a portion from his plate to his friend’s. He was of a far more easy-going nature than his younger friend. “Try it, you’ll come round to my way of thinking.”  
  
Thorin approached the table where his kin were gathered, a small smile on his lips as he listened to the exchange. “Don’t go into any alliances based on the whims of your stomach,” he cautioned his heir.  
  
“It would be a hobbitish way of conducting your affairs,” Bilbo added, sitting down in the empty seat Bofur evidently saved specifically for him. “I’ll have you know I keep up several acquaintances based solely on the quality of their pie-making. If Hugo Bracegirdle couldn’t work wonders with blueberries, I wouldn’t cross the street to meet him. He’s stolen half my library under pretense of ‘borrowing.’”  
  
“But you still let him borrow?” Bofur asked, eyes twinkling as he nudged the halfling in the side.  
  
Bilbo shrugged helplessly, “It’s the blueberries I tell you, what else am I to do?”  
  
Fíli laughed and slapped the top of the table. “I think it’s brilliant! Let’s go in for it, this time next year, rather than the mightiest of our warriors having it out with axe and sword, we’ll have a pie-making contest. That’ll separate the ore from the gangue.”  
  
Further down the table Dís snorted into her glass of wine, “I’d never have taken you for a sneaky sort, Mr Baggins, but here you are having the worst sort of influence on my son!”  
  
“Lucky for us he’s not king yet,” Dwalin agreed, but his gravelly voice had a teasing note to it. “Otherwise, next time we’re set upon by invading armies, our first line of defense would be to throw pies at ‘em.”  
  
The prince was unperturbed by the criticism. “You lot just don’t understand my genius,” he said, draining the rest of his wine. The Elves still could not be prevailed upon to serve some good wholesome stout, unfortunately. “It’s beyond the ken of ordinary folks.”  
  
“Thank the blades of our ancestors for being ordinary,” Ori grinned across the table at Fíli. “If that’s genius, I’m happy to thrive in mediocrity.”  
  
“Hate to see what idiocy looks like,” Dwalin agreed.  
  
Beside his father, Frerin smiled slyly and said, “Probably looks a lot like Fíli,” and ducked when his older brother lobbed a roll at his head.  
  
“Here now, that’s enough picking on my brother!” Kíli protested. Then lowering his voice, added to Fíli, “You’re going to have to work on that aim for the pie-throwing to work as a defensive strategy.”  
  
“Take a bit more care, would you,” Thorin asked, giving his nephews a mildly disapproving look. That sort of behavior was all well and good under the Mountain, among intimates, but not when representing your kingdom among the other races of Middle-earth.

His eyes scanned the other tables to see if anyone noticed his heir presumptive throwing food, but they were bent over their meals, heads inclined toward one another, presumably discussion the affairs of the day. He was not sure whether he ought to feel proud or frustrated that the Erebor faction instead devoted their evening meal to making fun and discussing the merits of fruit pies as artillery. At least his nephews had the decency to look mildly chagrined.  
  
“So, Bilbo,” Bofur began, turning the conversation to their former burglar. “What’ve you been up to? Still shutting yourself up in the library at all hours? I’d have thought you made a clean sweep of it last time.”  
  
The hobbit was surprised Bofur remembered his preferred activity the last time they were in Rivendell, it was very long ago and only a very short period of time was spent among the Elves. Now, as then, the miner surprised Bilbo with his perception. “Not quite a clean sweep,” the hobbit replied wryly. Then, feeling he might well regret divulging this information, added, “Writing a great deal, actually. About...erm, our adventure.”  
  
That did it, any remaining interest in Fíli’s alleged tactical genius was immediately swallowed up by this new topic of conversation. “Really?” Ori asked, perking up. “That’s wonderful! Can I read it? Do you want to compare notes? I’ve still got my notebook and my sketchbook, I can send you copies from Erebor when we return. You should’ve said before we came, I would have brought them with me!”  
  
“Well, I hardly thought so many of you would come,” Bilbo replied, shrugging slightly helplessly. “But yes, if it isn’t too much trouble, I’d very much like to read your notes. Yours are probably a good deal more accurate than mine, you were writing as we traveled. There’s likely a great deal I’ve forgotten or misremembered.”  
  
“We refreshed your memory on the trolls well enough last night, I hope,” Kíli grinned.  
  
Bilbo chuckled, “Well, that was one incident I could never fail to recall.”  
  
“Please be kind to them when giving your account,” Dís requested. “Try not to make it look as though my four made a terrible botch of it.”  
  
“Four?” Fíli asked, raising an eyebrow at his mother. “Frerin and Fredís weren’t even _born_ yet, Mam. And Bilbo thinks _his_ memory’s bad.”  
  
“She means Da and Uncle Thorin,” Fredís clarified for her brother.  
  
Both Dwarves had dignity enough about them to look supremely annoyed at being accused of botching anything, Thorin with perhaps a little less vocal indignation than Dwalin; his actions at the end very nearly cost him everything, after all.  
  
“Who was it who gave the order to set up camp not fifty yards away from three trolls?” Dís asked, smirking at her brother. “And what stalwart and ever-vigilant warrior did not say a word against it? The less said about losing the ponies, the better.”  
  
Dwalin and Thorin exchanged a look. “Couldn’t rightly say who’s to blame,” the former shrugged, conveniently stuffing his mouth with food and rendering himself unable to comment any more on the topic.  
  
The latter likewise shrugged, “Can’t recall. It was a long while ago.”  
  
Rolling her eyes, Dís declared the two of them absolutely hopeless and her sons argued that if she would rather not talk about the Pony Incident, it might be helpful to stop bringing it up every time she felt a bit low and wanted a laugh.  
  
“How much have you written?” Glóin asked, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “I’d like to see the finished product before it’s bound. A fellow likes to see he’s been done justice in such things.”  
  
“You think you haven't been?” Gimli asked, giving his father a curious look. “Your conduct was not less than exemplary...was it?”  
  
“Well...” his father blustered. “Trying times. You know.” There was that one little matter of threatening the same Elf who was now taking care to feed them up proper with an axe following an invitation to dinner. Not one of his most shining moments.

“I’m not sure that I do,” Gimli said, a smile lurking around his mouth. “Is there another story that’s been kept from me all these years?” With an accusatory look at Fíli and Kíli he added, “I’m coming to realize you two are piss-poor storytellers.”  
  
Ori snorted. “Just _now_?” he asked rhetorically.  
  
“Pardon me, but I’ll have you know our account of the Council was _entirely_ accurate,” Fíli proclaimed, looking to his uncle for support. “Was it not?”  
  
“Nearly entirely,” Thorin nodded, but really, he had no idea what it was the lads related to Ori, having been overcome himself and hardly recalled any details.  
  
Ori sighed and eyed Gimli prospectively. “Would it be too much trouble to ask you to take detailed notes on your journey?” he asked, already suspecting he knew the answer to that question.  
  
“It would,” Gimli confirmed with a decisive nod.  
  
“Thought as much,” Ori said glumly. Then, brightening, he added, “But I’ll be happy to help you as long as we’re here, Bilbo.”  
  
“You’ll have to pass a few sleepless nights, we’re leaving day after tomorrow.” Dís reminded him. Ori deflated slightly; they would remain long enough to see Gimli on his quest, but the Dwarves could not afford to tarry too long at Rivendell. It was unprecedented for all the highest ranking members of the court to leave the Mountain for so long a journey, regardless of the cause. Balin could not be prevailed upon to handle their affairs indefinitely.  
  
Bofur made a face, “Hardly seems fair, you shutting yourself up with Bilbo when we’ve hardly got a chance to make a proper visit of it.”  
  
“You’re more than welcome to sit in, if reciting memories of bygone days isn’t too boring for you,” Bilbo offered, eyes flickering around the table. “I’ll be very grateful for all contributions to the narrative, I’m sure.”  
  
Grinning Bofur replied, “Won’t be boring for me - mind, if Fíli and Kíli have a hand in it, you’ll be writing a very short book.” Before the brothers could speak up in their own defense, the older dwarf said, “I heard you telling little Ori about the Council. If you talk about our quest the same way, I’m sure all Bilbo’ll have to write is this: ‘Once upon a time thirteen dwarves, a hobbit and a wizard sought to reclaim a mountain from a dragon and so they did.’”  
  
Adopting an attitude of great consternation, Fíli seemed to want very much to argue that point, but try as he might, he could not come up with a more elaborate re-telling than that. “Well, that’s what happened,” he shrugged. “More or less, wouldn’t you say so, brother?”  
  
“Aye, more or less,” Kíli agreed. “‘Course, you could spare a few words for how brave, intelligent and handsome the young princes were, of the thirteen.”  
  
“Especially handsome,” Fíli nodded.  
  
Laughing, Bilbo nodded, “I might be able to manage a line or two, if you insist.”  
  
“We do,” the brothers chorused as one.  
  
Once their meal was finished, Bilbo adjourned to Lord Elrond’s library, accompanied by Bofur, Gimli,  the princes and his fellow hobbits, eager to hear the tale of his adventures from another perspective. Since they were starting off on their own journey the next day, they were especially keen to hear tell of a quest that turned out well.  
  
Later that night, after hours of laughing, bickering and note-reading in Lord Elrond’s library,Bilbo claimed he was entirely too old to be up so late and bid his friends and relations goodnight. The Dwarves and Hobbits passed a little more time together, but those in the Fellowship of the Ring, who had a long journey to make together, went to bed soon thereafter. Bofur, Ori and their princes were the last to leave, sharing pipes in the dimly lit chamber.  
  
After a few minutes of companionable silence, Kíli volunteered a thought he had been entertaining all evening, “He really ought to come to Erebor, I feel like we’ve spent no time at all with him and it’s been ages.”

“Agreed,” Fíli nodded. “I don’t see a reason why he shouldn’t, there’s beds aplenty and pleasanter company by far than any he could find here.”  
  
“He’s old,” Bofur said simply, shaking his head sadly. “And not about to mount a pony and go riding off into the mountains.”  
  
“He’s younger than I am,” Ori protested, but even as he spoke, he knew the folly of his words. Bilbo moved slowly and his face was heavily written on by time’s pen. By contrast, Ori remained nearly as fresh-faced and unlined as he was when they made their journey home all those years ago.  
  
Bofur sighed, “Aye, that’s true enough. But he’s also a Hobbit and, as I hear tell, longer lived than most of his people. Just because we love him like one of our own, it don’t change that fact.”  
  
The Dwarves smoked without speaking for a time, brooding on the very real possibility that they might never see their burglar again after they returned to the Mountain. It would not do, they all felt strongly. It would not do.  
  
Three pipes a-piece later, they decided they had a solution to their woes; all they had to do was run the idea by their king for his approval and they had no doubt that Thorin would agree with them, for he was as fond of Bilbo as any of their Company.  
  
They came upon him just as he was preparing to enter the room he shared with Fíli and Kíli. It would be an exaggeration to call their badgering an _ambush_ , but they were all very keen and insisted on standing very close to him so Thorin could not easily open the door and escape their machinations.  
  
“We’ve been thinking - ” Bofur began to broach the topic after the expected ‘Good evening, pleased to see you’re up and about, mind if we have a quick word,’ but was quickly cut off by their eager scribe.  
  
“Wondering,” Ori interjected.  
  
“Discussing,” Fíli amended, rocking back on his heels.  
  
“Plotting, _really_ \- ” Kíli clarified, as ever too honest for his own good, but his brother gave him a sharp jab in the ribs to shut him up.  
  
“Lads, it was agreed that I would do the talking,” the miner interjected smoothly. “Anyway, we’ve been knocking our heads together and it seems a shame to go on off home and leave Bilbo all by his lonesome.”  
  
Thorin was a shewed dwarf and by this point in his life knew better than to agree outright with _any_ idea these four presented him with. Singularly, they were all of sound mind, but get them together and gems of good ideas could become corrupted into spectacularly poor decisions.  
  
“I’d prefer we had more time to spare,” was the king’s cautious reply. “But you cannot expect me to believe you do not want to take your leave of this place.”  
  
“Eh, it has its charms,” Bofur said, ever complimentary, as was his wont. “But, we didn’t think to tarry here longer than we’d planned and we thought, yourself being agreeable, that per’aps Bilbo might like a...change of scenery. Fewer trees and rivers and more rock and ore.”  
  
“We want to take him home with us,” Fíli said, tired of all their dancing around the subject.

Whatever Thorin had been expecting them to ask, that was not it. “You want to take him home with us?” he repeated and his nephews nodded. “Fíli, you’re not a dwarfling bringing snakes back to the house - he’s not a _pet_.”  
  
“We weren’t thinking that!” Kíli protested. “We were going to _ask_ him, of course.”  
  
Closing his eyes and resisting rubbing the bridge of his nose in frustration, Thorin shook his head, saying, “I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. I’ve already asked, he’s quite firm that this is where he prefers to stay.”  
  
“Did he _say_ that,” Fíli asked, picking up his mother’s skeptical tone when his uncle said something that she felt did not reflect the world as it was, but rather the world as Thorin saw it. Sometimes they were two very different things.  
  
Thorin would bear that scrutiny from his sister, but not his nephew. “He did,” he confirmed, tone taking on a hard note that Kíli called his King Voice behind his uncle’s back when he was younger. The tone fell away slightly as he was forced to think on their burglar’s mortality. “He...likely does not have many years left and if he prefers to spend them here, that is his right.”  
  
Ori, always warier of Thorin than the others, cleared his throat nervously and ventured, “Well...we have thought of that. We could outfit a supply wagon for the journey so he doesn’t have to ride for long stretches if he...can’t.”  
  
“I think it’s more natural to want to spend your last days among family and friends,” Bofur said and he knew of what he spoke. When Bifur was first injured and the healers were not convinced his cousin would survive, he and Bombur took him home in any case. Better to spend your last days among people who loved you, rather than folks who would only strive to make you comfortable.  “As his own lads are going away, I’d say we’re not bad substitutes.”  
  
The King Under the Mountain hesitated. In his heart, he was one with his fellows, but pride and common courtesy dictated that he remain neutral in this. That he conduct himself as befitted a monarch and not a friend. “If Bilbo wishes to accompany us to Erebor, he is welcome,” Thorin said and it was clear he considered this to be the final word on the matter. “As ever he has been. But I won’t have you forcing the issue or doing anything foolish to pressure him to comply. Am I understood?”  
  
“Aye, sir,” the quartet chorused dutifully. Perhaps, if they were Men or even Elves, they would have let the subject rest. They would have sent Gimli off the next day, bid farewell to their burglar the day following and lived the rest of their lives with that kernel of regret in their hearts.  
  
But they were Dwarves. And a Dwarf is nothing if not stubborn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens (or, rather, turns up after six chapters)! Four conspiring dwarves versus one unsuspecting hobbit. Hmm, I wonder how THIS will turn out ;-) Also, for some reason, I've decided Kíli's more the marrying sort than Fíli, I don't know why. I wrote it both ways and it just seems more fitting to me that Kíli's the adorably devoted papa and Fíli's the fun uncle.


	8. Chapter 8

Before they could begin to convince Bilbo to travel with them, there were goodbyes to make. The other races who remained behind to see the Fellowship of the Ring off sat in judgment of the Dwarves of Erebor for they shed no tears, nor even spoke much to young Gimli as he set out on his quest. Dwarves, they concluded, had hearts as cold and unfeeling as the stone they mined.  
  
This, of course, was entirely incorrect. Dwarves preferred to make their goodbyes in private, they felt no need to act out their parting before an audience. It would benefit Gimli nothing for the Elves and Men to look upon them with approval, noting how deeply they cared for their fellow. He knew they wished him well and that was all that mattered.  
  
Once the dwarflings shyly wished their cousin good luck and Dwalin and Bofur made their goodbyes (short and sweet, in that order), Dís took hold of Gimli’s arms and pressed her forehead to his. “Mukhuh Mahal bakhuz murukhzu*,” she murmured, a heaviness in her heart that she well remembered. She felt much the same way when she sent her sons and brother off to reclaim their mountain.   
  
“Gaubdûkhimâ gagin yâkùlib Mahal**,” Gimli responded formally. Dís pulled away and smiled down at him. Migimli; their little Gimli. Her throat tightened uncomfortably and she drew him into a close embrace and kissed his cheek.   
  
“We’d better,” she replied, trying to chase her darker thoughts away with a joke. “Otherwise your mother will have my head chopped off and mounted.”  
  
Gimli dropped his solemn, formal expression and grinned lopsidedly at the dwarrowdamn. “You know that’s not true,” he said, almost teasingly.  
  
Dís chuckled and drew away so the others could give the young dwarf their blessings saying as she did so, “You’re right, she’d never send someone else to do it; she’d chase me around Erebor with her own axe.”    
  
“Take care of yourself,” Thorin said gruffly. He was not a dwarf to whom flowery sentiments came easy and he saw no reason to say five words where one would suffice. Gimli valued straight talk as much as any dwarrow and nodded to his king..  
  
“I’ll do you honor, sir, yourself and our people.” He stood so straight, looking so fine in his armor that there seemed nothing at all in him of the curly haired dwarrow lad who used to go trailing after his nephews, raising merry havoc under his roof in the Blue Mountains. Gimli had come very far since them. They all had.  
  
Thorin patted Gimli on the shoulder with a fatherly affection and stood back to let the others bid him farewell.  
  
Fíli and Kíli were far more demonstrative in their goodbyes. They embraced their friend firmly and spoke together about the sights he’d see and how the others should fall on their knees in gratitude that they had dwarvish steel at their backs.   
  
“Who knows more about how to unmake jewelry than a Dwarf, eh?” Fíli smiled. “You’re just the fellow for the job.”  
  
“Couldn’t find one better in all the Seven Kingdoms,” Kíli agreed, one hand lingering on his friend’s arm, reluctant to let him go. Gimli had been like a little brother to Kíli when they grew up in the Blue Mountains. Ori and he were nearly of an age, but Gimli was young enough that he really looked up to him, he could teach him things and lead him into all kinds of trouble. He’d been nearly as upset as Gimli was when Glóin declared him too young to join them on the Quest for Erebor and they had to leave him behind.  
  
Now a father himself, he saw the wisdom in the decision for Gimli, spirited enough for _ten_ grown Dwarves, had been too young to accompany them on their adventure. So had he, come to that. It all ended well, but Kíli was not so thick that he did not realize how very badly it might have turned out for them, in another lifetime.

This time Gimli had a quest of his own to venture forth on, one they could not make with him. Again, Kíli was loathe to part with him, but he was not so different now from the rash young dwarf he’d once been. Bending down, in a playful mockery of his mother’s earlier serious, he intoned, “Ma ôhfûkizu kuthu khathuzh aslônî.***”   
  
Fíli too bowed his head and finished the phrase with all due reverence, “Ni ma mahùlchùp agrîfumùn hi ya.****” Gimli’s face broke out in a smile and he laughed heartily. The brothers too laughed warmly; none said it, but all three agreed that if they were to be parted forever this day, it was best that their last moment together be spent in jokes and laughter, as they’d passed most of their lives together.  
  
Ori was altogether too intelligent and nervous a Dwarf to share that mindset entirely. He smiled at the brothers’ joke, but when he put his arms around Gimli, he whispered, “ _Please_ be careful. Don’t do anything stupid for your pride’s sake.”  
  
When Ori was really concerned, he channeled his eldest brother’s spirit in that he was more concerned about getting his point across clearly than he was in being polite. The younger dwarf probably should have been insulted by the words, but he recognized the care underneath. As he himself often remarked of his learned friend, Ori was more worrier than warrior. “I’ll do my best,” Gimli reassured him.   
  
Everyone left the room then, to give father and son some privacy and loitered in the corridor in a thick, thoughtful silence. When Glóin and Gimli emerged, the son was bearing his father’s own axe in his hand, the very same axe that served Glóin so well against the armies of orcs and goblins some sixty years before. Would that it defend its new bearer as well as the old.  
The Dwarves saw their friend, cousin, son and companion as far as the gate, watching quietly until the bobbing heads of the odd Fellowship blurred and disappeared from their view. It was one of the few times in his life Glóin would regret being born a Dwarf. If his eyes were better, he could have kept his son in his line of sight longer.  
  
Yet they were Dwarves and praying over loved ones and bidding them farewell with wishes that their axes never grow dull was common as breathing to them. They would miss Gimli and worry about him, but there were other things to concern themselves with before they made ready to return home.  
  
Bilbo joined them to watch the Fellowship vanish. Unlike the still and secretive dwarrows, he waved to the hobbits with a mournful expression on his face. It was plain to see his love and fear, the dwarves was hidden deeper, but no less sincere. With a sigh, Bilbo turned to Ori and asked whether or not he might like to return to their work since they were so soon to leave him.  
  
Ori agreed readily, trying not to become too distracted by Bofur who was winking at him in a peculiar fashion and hung around the library with the two of them that afternoon. Bofur was the overseer of their latest quest and took his job very seriously. By his calculations they had a little over twenty-four hours to convince their hobbit that he should change his life around yet again and come back to the mountains with them, in spite of age and infirmity. Considering the fact that Bilbo would probably be sleeping for at least eight of those twenty-four hours, they did not have very much time at all.  
  
Especially since Ori was dreadful at staying on task. They’d been discussing exactly how long they were kept prisoner by the Elvenking (“Too long,” was Bofur’s reply when they asked him for his best guess) for nearly an hour and Ori had not said a thing about Bilbo coming home with them.   
  
Positioning himself behind Bilbo, Bofur made a grand gesture with his arms, implying that Ori should get on with it. The younger Dwarf looked slightly panicked and shook his head, hands twitching helplessly.

**Talk about the mountain,** Bofur signed behind the hobbit’s back.  
  
 **What do I say?** Ori signed back when Bilbo had his nose pressed close to the parchment and could not see anything.  
  
Bofur shrugged. **You write. Make it up from your head.** Ori was a scribe, not a writer of tall tales. “There’s...just so much to talk about,” he said and Bilbo nodded.  
  
“I can’t thank you enough for your help,” he said to Ori, genuinely. “You’ve been marvellous. I think we can safely say we were among the Wood Elves for two weeks without being defamed as liars, wouldn’t you agree?”  
  
“Oh, aye,” Ori nodded, finding that a very agreeable compromise. Bofur was gesturing impatiently again and he started to panic. There was never a good outcome when he started to panic, and so burst out with, “But what about the sea monster?” he asked, sucking on the end of a quill. Bofur tilted his head so far in incredulity his hat nearly fell off.  
  
 **Sea monster?** he signed, fingers moving slowly, as if he could not quite believe what he’d just heard.   
  
“That’s what I said,” Ori replied, not realizing just how out of place the words would sound to Bilbo, who could not see what Bofur was doing. “The, erm, sea snake that held us all captive. Erm. Before we got to Lake Town.”  
  
Bilbo looked up at the scribe, disbelief deepening his wrinkles even as a smile played around his mouth, “That is an event I definitely do _not_ recall.” Ever a polite hobbit, he was not about to comment, but given Ori’s manner, he would not have been surprised to hear that he’d been sampling Lord Elrond’s wine, even though that seemed very unlike him.   
  
“Oh, well, it...was...eventful.” Ori was not a Dwarf made for subterfuge, but now that he’d chosen a tactic, he was going to stick to it, even if it was doomed to failure from the start. “I’ve written all about it, reams and reams, too much to for the ravens to carry even if I sent a whole congress. You’d have to come to Erebor to read it in full.”  
  
Bilbo smiled indulgently. “I suppose that will have to be a supplementary chapter, only available to those in the East. Or, if you send me a condensed version, I could outline it in the appendices.”  
  
“Oh, no one ever reads the appendices,” the young dwarf lamented. “No, no, it won’t do at all.”  
  
“I should say not,” Bofur said aloud, shaking his head and leaving the library without another word to either of them. Ori was a sweet lad and very intelligent, but not exactly _clever_. Fíli and Kíli came up the corridor at a quick clip, looking at the miner with identical eager expressions.  
  
“Well?” Fíli asked expectantly.  
  
“Should I prepare a wagon for him?” Kíli asked, half turned and ready to run off toward the stables.  
  
Being an unusually optimistic Dwarf, Bofur nodded after a moment’s consideration. Ori’s blathering about beasts from the sea (really, they would have been river monsters if they held them captive during that barrel ride) was only a minor setback, he was sure, somehow their wits would prevail in the end.  
  
Then again, as Balin observed that long ago night in Bag End, the best and the brightest were assets against high odds and, good-hearted though they may be, none of the Dwarves who were in on the plot to smuggle Bilbo to the Lonely Mountain were especially cunning. The princes had a good grasp of combat, they knew how to keep Erebor running and could beat back their enemies in battle, but they were not sly sorts. Ori’s mind held tales of their people’s great deeds going back to the time of Durin the Deathless, but his imagination did not stretch to encompass well-intentioned treachery. Bofur, their ringleader, was a craftsman at heart. If someone commissioned him to make a hobbit-snatching device, he could have it done by nightfall, but damn him if he could figure out a way to lure the halfling into the trap.

Even Dís, who was readily conscripted into their plot, was wise for her years, but not fashioned by nature for skulduggery. “Short of knocking him out and putting him on a wagon, I have no idea what’s to be done,” she said as the small group of them made for the ponies, to see that they were fed and watered.  
  
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Fíli said, stroking his beard in thought.  
  
“Because that’d be a nasty job and it’s beneath you,” his mother informed him. She sighed and unlatched the gate of the paddock where their ponies were grazing, letting the others in before herself. “I agree, should come with us, I think it would be good for him, but if he doesn’t want to  - ”  
  
“He does want to come,” Kíli said. “He was saying the other night he _wanted_ to see us, he meant to go himself, only the way is too long for him now. But if we’re with him, it won’t be as hard as if he was traveling alone.”  
  
“Don’t you think he knows that?” Dís reasoned. “Every last one of us would be happy to see him come to Erebor - if it weren’t for him, we’d not have a Mountain at all. Surely he knows we’d move the earth to see him there safely.”  
  
“Likely doesn’t want to trouble you,” a voice as cool as a slab of granite piped up from nearby. The tones were even and calm and _just_ this side of oily. The Dwarves of Erebor would know it anywhere.  
  
“Young Nori!” Bofur grinned cheerfully, as though he was not at all shocked to see the dwarf (no longer so young, his neatly braided hair and beard were streaked with grey) feeding an apple to one of their ponies.  
  
Dís was not nearly so dignified. Her mouth made a perfect ‘O’ of surprise and then, unexpectedly, she began to laugh. “What are you _doing_ here?” she demanded, hands on her hips. As ever when she and Nori happened to cross paths she did not know if she wanted to throttle him or embrace him.  
  
“Just in the neighborhood,” he shrugged, leaning up against the paddock fence as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Thought I’d stop in, see how my favorite ruling family is faring these days.” Grinning at Ori, he dipped his head and added, “Hello, little brother, you’re looking well.”  
  
“‘Just in the neighborhood?’” Ori quoted back, unable to stop himself smiling a little at his brother. “You might want to get _out_ of the neighborhood, Thorin’s awfully cross with you.”  
  
“Not _awfully_ ,” Dís corrected. “Just a mite frustrated that a share of a dragon’s hoard isn’t enough to keep him on the straight and narrow.”  
  
One of Nori’s hands went to his heart lazily. “What? A few baubles get nicked from some overfed ponies and it’s, ‘Call out the King’s Guard’?”  
  
That was something to consider. Fíli and Kíli looked at one another and back at Nori in confusion. Should they seize him? These weren’t their lands, technically they had no authority to enact their justice in Rivendell, but he was a wanted Dwarf. Nori sauntered over to the group, bold as you please and smiled at them in that crafty way of his, “I was wondering if I might plead for leniency.”  
  
“On what grounds?” Dís asked, not bothering to affect a stern demeanor since she knew from experience that it would not matter a jot to Nori.  
  
“On the grounds that you’ve got yourselves a problem I might be able to solve for you - couldn’t help overhearing,” he spread his hands in a helpless gesture, then grinned, a gold tooth glimmering in the midday sun. “Seems to me you could use a thief to steal a burglar.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More Khuzdul! This came from the Dwarrow Scholar's list of common sayings, which can be found here: http://dwarrowscholar.mymiddleearth.com/2012/10/08/khuzdul-common-sayings/ but I've got the translations below.
> 
> *May Mahal's hammer shield you.  
> **May we meet again with the grace of Mahal.  
> ***Rejoice not when an Elf falls -  
> ****- but don't rush to pick him up either.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it for this story, my darlings! I hope you've enjoy it all so far, I hope you enjoy the end, I know I've loved writing it. Thanks for the comments and the kudos and thank you for reading.

Contrary to popular belief, Fíli and Kíli were capable of comporting themselves with dignity, authority and even a fair bit of intelligence. When at court, they applied themselves as rigorously to the standards of royal comportment as they did to their weapons training as dwarflings. With their elders as their guides, they learned how to remain steadfast without seeming unyielding and determined without being disrespectful. Among family and friends, of course, formality could be done away with entirely, but with their kingdom restored, there were forms to be abided by to ensure its continuity. Fíli especially learned his lessons well and was shaping up to be a fine king one day.  
  
Today was not that day and the heir apparent let out a very unkingly groan, coupled with a less than regal eye roll. They remained in the paddock, sitting in a tight circle on the grass, a sight as far removed from Elrond’s auspicious Counsel as ever there was. Nori’s first plan of action in Operation Burgle the Burglar was awfully similar to their mother’s, only instead of recommending they bash him over the head and bundle him into the wagon while unconscious, the thief had enough finesse to suggest putting some valerian in his wine and then bundling him into a wagon unconscious.  
  
“Won’t work,” Fíli shook his head. “Thorin was very clear: he comes of his own accord or he stays behind.”  
  
“Once he found out what we’d done, he’d probably make us put him back,” Kíli nodded glumly. “We can’t expect him to sleep all the way to Erebor and we’d have to feed him sometime.”  
  
Nori’s only reply was a shrug and a mysterious half-smile, which the princes ignored. They knew better than to ask - _ever_.  
  
Ori cleared his throat and twiddled the ends of his braids nervously. “I suppose one of us could just ask outright. Tell him we’re prepared to have him along and he won’t have to ride the whole way - or even part way if he doesn’t want to. The trails and roads aren’t so rough now as they were years ago. Maybe that’s what he’s worried about?”  
  
It was true, the newly restored kingdom led to a great deal of repair and security on the in-roads. Even the Mirkwood Elves agreed to let passers-through journey unmolested through their forest. _That_ was a complicated bit of diplomacy even after they fought side-by-side with the Dwarves of Erebor that took the combined efforts of Thorin (who aided the proceedings largely by keeping his silence), Dain Ironfoot, Dís, Lord Elrond of Rivendell and Balin to bring to a successful end. Of course, some of the paths were treacherous regardless of the efforts of Elves and Dwaves. A gathering darkness, indeed.  
  
While Bilbo had followed them to an uncertain end when he was middle-aged, he would likely not be keen on traveling treacherous mountain paths now, in his twilight years. Even with the promise of aid and a wagon - possibly, especially not with the promise of aid and a wagon.  
  
“You know what he’s like,” Bofur pointed out. “Can you imagine telling him we got a wagon fitted for him special? He’ll turn red as a beet and say, ‘No,’ over and over.”  
  
Fíli nodded, “He’ll wag his finger too, and no mistaking.”

Nori seemed disgusted with the lot of them. “You lads sound just like my brother - _elder_ brother. Nothing’s ever going to go right, it’s all hopeless before you set out. No way to live, you’ve got to think about things with a better outlook. Always assume the odds are in your favor.”  
  
“And when they aren’t?” Dís asked, arching a brow at him.  
  
Smirking, Nori gave her one of his unfathomable shrugs. “Just have to tilt ‘em toward you, a bit. Shake the table. Stack the deck.”  
  
“And how, pray, do you propose we go about doing that?” the Lady Under the Mountain folded her arms and regarded Nori skeptically. “Thirty gold peytrals, remember.”  
  
“Was it thirty? I’d have thought there were more - ”  
  
“I’d take more care, if I were you,” Dwalin growled. He was standing at the edge of the circle of co-conspirators. It was not that he preferred their hobbit stay in Rivendell, but neither entirely keen on keeping Nori’s presence a secret from their king. It was only his wife’s telling him to keep the news to himself for a while that stayed his feet from marching off to find Thorin, but it was a near thing. “Ought to be clapped in irons, by rights.”  
  
“Aye, thanks for reminding me, I’d nearly forgotten,” Nori was one of the few dwarves who dared roll his eyes at Dwalin. The old warrior might terrify the citizens of Dale, but Nori knew him too well to be all _that_ intimidated. It was probably good for Dwalin to know not everyone would stiffen up and turn into a jibbering idiot in his presence. “What it sounds like you lot need is a bit of good old-fashioned subterfuge. We know Bilbo likes to set store by manners, eh? So get him to say something that could be taken to mean he’d be _glad_ to come to Erebor, if only the transport could be arranged.”  
  
“We’ve _tried_ ,” Bofur said, but the ne’er-do-well cut him off.  
  
“Try harder,” Nori replied. “Doesn’t have to be much, just, ‘Y’know, Bilbo, we were thinking what a shame it is that you haven’t seen the mountain, it’s looking ever so much better since we got rid of the corpses - ”  
  
“ _Nori_ ,” Dís’s voice took on a warning note. Teasing them was fine, but she would not abide his disrespect of the dead. “Too far.”  
  
Holding his hands up, he ducked his head a bit, as if in preparation for a blow. “Sorry. Poor choice of words. Anway, ‘It’s looking better since we aired the place out, sure you couldn’t come for a visit?’ And then he’ll grouse about being too old, but probably say something about how he wishes it was otherwise and _then_ just sneak it in there, in theory, that the journey wouldn’t be too hard for him if he rode most of the way. And he’d probably agree. And there you are.” Nori popped the bit of his pipe between his teeth and flicked a match on the heel of his boot. “Turn up outside his room with a sedan chair if you’d like, how could he refuse when you’ve _already_ gone to the trouble?”  
  
The Dwarves agreed, some begrudgingly, that this _did_ sound like a decent enough strategy. Just giving the odds a little nudge rather than a great big shove. It was better than drugging him, at any rate. There was only one thing more to consider.  
  
“Who’s going to talk to him?” Kíli asked, looking around at the group. “We’ve tried already, Ori even made up something about sea serpents, but he didn’t bite.”  
  
“...sea serpents?” Dís asked.

Sighing, Ori tried to defend himself, "It was only the _one_ sea serpent," but Fíli shook his head.  
  
“Better not to ask,” he told her. “But, Mam, why don’t you have a go? You’re clever about talking to people.”  
  
Dís would certainly never use the word ‘clever’ to describe her conversation. She was straightforward as they come, but kindly in her way and practical to a fault. Useful for getting folks to see reason in unreasonable situations, but not exactly helpful when trying to trick a hobbit into abandoning the comforts of Rivendell for the vagaries of travel.  
  
“I’m fond of him, but we aren’t what I’d call close,” she reminded her son. “I haven’t spent nearly the time with him you lads have. I think it’d be better coming from someone he’s more acquainted with."

She trailed off, pondering. Bofur and Bilbo got on terribly well, but his attempts at coaxing the halfling along got them nowhere. Balin would have been just perfect for this sort of thing, but he was miles away, having taken control of the mountain’s affairs in her brother’s absence. _Her brother._  
  
Struck by inspiration, Dís got to her feet and took off for the sun-dappled gates of Rivendell at a run. “I’ve got it!” she called over her shoulder. “Dwalin, love, keep an eye on our young Nori, will you?”  
  
If her husband replied in the affirmative, she did not hear him, but she knew he would not let their beloved thief out of his sight. Nori was neither a good lad, nor an especially kind one, but he was one of them regardless. She’d not see him thrown into Erebor’s dungeons, if she could help it, nor would she permit him to bugger off and play them all for fools if his little scheme did not work out.  
  
Dís found her brother _with_ the burglar and her two younger children in the library. The sight took her aback, it couldn’t have been more convenient unless it was dictated by fate. Smiling and only slightly out of breath (maybe more than slightly, Thorin was giving her quite the searching look), Dís strode forward and said, “Where have you all been?”  
  
“Here,” Frerin informed her, tilting his head back to look at her. “Where have _you_ been? We thought you’d gone home without us!”  
  
“Never,” his mother informed him, ruffling his thick dark hair fondly. “Leave without you, what a thought. We’re all of us going together, never you fear.”  
  
Considering herself altogether more sensible than her brother, Fredís suffered no such concerns, but only cleared her throat and jerked her head toward Bilbo. “Mister Baggins was speaking,” she said slightly impatiently. Turning eager eyes on the hobbit, she asked, “And _how_ tall were the stone giants?”  
  
“As big as a mountain,” Bilbo replied, enjoying the look of mingled fear and excitement on her face. Dwarflings and fauntlings were much the same in their appreciation for a good story. He supposed the children of all races were similar in that regard.  
  
“Big as Erebor?” Fredís asked, sitting up on her haunches.  
  
Bilbo paused and looked at Thorin who shook his head. “Not as big as Erebor - the one that nearly took half our company from us was very close, though.” He did not mention who exactly it was who escaped death that day, for though Fredís had a taste for stories of war and strife, she would bear ill the news that it had been her father and eldest brother whose deaths her uncle imagined so vividly, his breath was stolen from him at the thought.  
  
“I’m afraid I have need of your audience,” Dís said apologetically amid groans from her children.  
  
“But why, Ama?” Fredís asked plaintively. “They’re not finished yet!”  
  
“We’re leaving in the morning and you need to put your things away,” Dís replied and it was not a lie, exactly. There was time yet to pack their belongings and ready the mounts, but if she was going to convince her brother to ask their burglar to come along home with them it would have to be out of earshot of the children. Frerin and Fredís, like most dwarflings, thought that if they just inquired about the same thing over and over they would eventually wear one down and get the desired response. It was not exactly the finesse their plan required.  
  
“Listen to your mother,” Thorin said firmly, always willing to back his sister up whenever it came to her children. One might have thought the demands of duty would dictate that he was less involved in Frerin and Fredís’s lives than he was Fíli and Kíli’s and while there were some marked differences, in essentials the love was the same. Thorin had been closer by far to his grandfather than he was his own father; being King Under the Mountain did not mean there was no time for family.

Speaking of family... “Go on ahead, I expect you to be half done by the time I join you,” Dís urged her children along when they were out of Bilbo’s hearing. When Thorin made to follow them, she took hold of his arm to stop him. “No, you stay,” she lowered her voice. “There’s something you need to talk about with your hobbit.”  
  
Thorin knew immediately what she was hinting at. “They’ve gotten to you, have they?” he asked his sister. “I told them not to vex him any longer, I’ve already asked him and he made it clear that he was not up for the journey.”  
  
“Did you?” Dís asked, giving her brother a very frank look. “Is that what you meant or is that what you said?”  
  
The phrase had the ring of being a game with them. Often throughout their lives, when Thorin was frustrated by some disagreement or other, Dís would listen attentively to his complaints and ask him if what he said at the time was what he meant in his heart. Sometimes it was that and she would happily join him in lambasting their enemies, but just as often her brother would pause, consider his words and admit that they may have been misconstrued.  
  
Thorin paused and considered his words to Bilbo, how the hobbit might have heard them. _I hope you knew you were always welcome._  
  
 _Well, the moving finger writes...ah, I’ve forgotten the rest._  
  
If it was an invitation to stay, it was a poor one. “Perhaps it was not as clear as I thought,” he admitted, looking back at the door of the library. “But he did tell me that his journey to Rivendell was his last adventure.”  
  
“I don’t think I’d call a few weeks’ travel an adventure,” Dís pointed out. “Tedious, perhaps, but nothing compared to stone giants and skin changers.” Inclining her head toward the door, she urged him, “Go on. Ask him to come. We’ve got the accommodations, all we need is one slightly aged hobbit to fill them.”  
  
Taking a breath, Thorin walked back in and saw Bilbo looking over Ori’s notes, faded now, in a book that was yellowing and waterstained. “What times we had, eh?” the halfing commented. He did not need to turn around to know Thorin re-joined him. He turned and looked outside the window, the look in his eyes very far away, with his nephew and his friends on the long, dark road. “I told Frodo I was sorry for everything.”  
  
Thorin walked to the hobbit’s side, not speaking. Ready to be shaken off, he laid a hand on Bilbo’s shoulder, but he simply covered it with his own, lightly gripping Thorin’s fingers. The flesh was thin and lined, but there was strength in the limb yet.  
  
“I am sorry for the trouble,” he went on, voice thick with unshed tears. “I am sorry that he must now do this terrible thing.” Then the hobbit turned to Thorin and though his eyes were glistening, he did not weep. “But I am not sorry I met you. All of you. The strife and the sorrow and the suffering...perhaps there’s a reason for it all. I couldn’t tell you what it was, I just know that I feel so privileged to have been a part of it.”  
  
“Come to Erebor,” Thorin blurted out. It was not a subtle nor as dignified as befitted his station, but it was what he _meant_ to say and his sister was always encouraging him to invest his words with his meaning. Moving to stand before the hobbit’s, he took his hand and covered it easily in both of his. “Come away with us. You’re part of the Company. Dearer to our hearts than many of our kin. You belong with us.”  
  
Bilbo closed his eyes and sighed. “I wish I - ”  
  
“Never mind that,” Thorin shook his head, looking imploring up into the hobbit’s closed eyes. “If the road and the travel and age were not considerations, would you come?”  
  
Bilbo opened his eyes and the look in him was wistful, but beneath that, there was a stronger emotion trying to fight its way to the surface: Hope. “If there was a way,” he smiled at the king, “I surely would.”

Dwalin knocked on the door of the library and Bilbo removed his hand from Thorin’s, placing it in his lap and twiddling his thumbs. “Nori’s here,” he said without preamble. “Thought you might like a word.”  
  
“Nori?” Bilbo asked incredulously. “I thought you said he was on the run, what on earth is he doing here, of all places?”  
  
“Plenty of royal mounts about,” Dwalin shrugged. “Wanted to add to his collection, most like.”  
  
Thorin frowned and said, “That’s not like him. He’s too devious by half to try his luck at a gathering like this.”  
  
“Must be getting addled in his old age,” the warrior remarked. “Anyway, there’s business wants tending too.”  
  
To Bilbo’s immense regret, he did not see very much of the former Company for the rest of the night. They did not dine at Lord Elrond’s table, Ori was not to be found in the library and they were not in their usual place on the veranda for songs and ale. His heart was heavy, but he knew they were leaving in the morning. After Thorin’s words, he did not think they would be so callous as to leave without saying goodbye.  
  
Since the Dwarves would likely rise with the sun to make their journey, Bilbo got himself to bed early. He woke just as the sky was turning from black to blue and reached over for his quill and book. The dream he’d been lost in before waking brought back powerful memories of the escape from King Thranduil’s dungeons and he wanted to write them down before he forgot - but his notebook was not where he’d placed it the night before. Neither was his quill.  
  
Still _more_ of his personal items seemed gone as he shuffled about completing his morning abulations. Bilbo would be the first to admit that his memory was not as sharp as it once was, but he did not think he would have misplaced three waistcoats and two pairs of trousers within a day. Maybe he’d begun sleepwalking. There was one complete outfit in his chambers, at least, so he dressed and made his way to the gates to bid his friends farewell - then stopped in his tracks when he saw what had become of his things.  
  
“All packed!” Bofur called brightly, sitting at the reins of a wagon which contained a truck and stacks of scrolls and notebooks that were very familiar to the old hobbit. “Glad you’re up and about so early, if you eat now, we could squeeze in a second breakfast on the roadside, no doubt.”  
  
Bilbo just gaped at them. He thought about pinching himself to see whether or not he still slept, but no dream of his could be as sweet as this. “However did you manage it?” he asked, plain deligh writ large all over his face.

“You’re not the only burglar of our King’s acquaintance.” And _there_ was Nori, unfettered by chains, giving Bilbo the most wicked grin he’d ever seen. “Wasn’t much of a challenge, I must say, you hobbits sleep soundly - and to bed so early as well.”  
  
“I had no one to pass the evening with,” Bilbo said, still somewhat in awe of all the trouble they’d gone to. And all for him. Thorin mentioned something about the travel not being difficult the night before, but he thought he must have been speaking in what-might-bes rather than what-weres. He was deeply touched by their efforts. Deeply touched.  
  
“We’ll put that to rights,” Kíli grinned. “Here out, you’ll be spending so much time with us, you’ll be sick to death of all our sorry faces.”  
  
Thorin was already mounted and ready to ride, but he was smiling at Bilbo as well, even as the hobbit approached him in an attitude of exaggerated consternation. “Were you in on this plot?” he asked, folding his arms and tapping his foot impatiently.  
  
“I may have heard rumblings about it, aye,” the king said impassively. “But then, you did say if there was a way...”  
  
“Yes, I suppose I did,” Bilbo smiled. “And I must say, you’ve outdone yourselves.”  
  
“So, what’ll it be?” Bofur asked. “Ready for one last adventure?”  
  
The hobbit looked around at the Dwarves, all wearing matching expressions of expectation laced with apprehension. It was the oddest thing, for Bilbo knew that even if he included this as an epilogue to his book, no one would believe it. A band of Dwarves - royalty, no less - bending over backwards to have a Hobbit they claimed as kin journey to their kingdom. It would never happen. Never. Dwarves were proud, it was said. Dwarves were greedy. Dwarves were cruel. Hobbits were simple. Hobbits were dull. Hobbits were nothing special, really.  
  
“Do you know,” Bilbo replied, allowing Bofur to pull him up into the wagon that he might sit beside him. “I think I am.”

* * *

  
None of it should have ever happened. By rights, they never should have met.  
  
If the Dragon had not come, the Line of Durin would be secure in their walls of stone, as proud and mighty as ever they were beneath the Mountain. No Broadbeam miner would ride along with the royal family, cracking jokes with the princes and making the princess laugh so hard her husband feared she might fall off her pony. The scribe would not share a midday meal with his brother, the thief. And certainly no hobbit would wear robes lined with wolfskin, dropped unceremoniously upon him by a King who worried he might catch a chill as dusk fell. Without the pain and the hardship and the trails, they would never have known one another.  
  
That thought, shared among the company that now rode to Erebor, went unmarked and unvoiced. They all knew, to varying degrees, that their lives were a tangle of interwoven threads which a careless decision, a wrong move in combat or greater wisdom in years past may have severed. The simple, wonderful absurdity of their shared existence was its own kind of blessing. For now they knew that, whatever the future held, all the strife, work and suffering that brought them to this moment had been well worth it. The uphill battle of living made sense to them now, at the end of the day, on the road home at long last.


End file.
